WARNING: Physics Envy May Be Hazardous To Your Wealth!

Andrew Lo () and Mark T. Mueller

Papers from arXiv.org

Abstract: The quantitative aspirations of economists and financial analysts have for many years been based on the belief that it should be possible to build models of economic systems - and financial markets in particular - that are as predictive as those in physics. While this perspective has led to a number of important breakthroughs in economics, "physics envy" has also created a false sense of mathematical precision in some cases. We speculate on the origins of physics envy, and then describe an alternate perspective of economic behavior based on a new taxonomy of uncertainty. We illustrate the relevance of this taxonomy with two concrete examples: the classical harmonic oscillator with some new twists that make physics look more like economics, and a quantitative equity market-neutral strategy. We conclude by offering a new interpretation of tail events, proposing an "uncertainty checklist" with which our taxonomy can be implemented, and considering the role that quants played in the current financial crisis.

Date: 2010-03, Revised 2010-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe and nep-pke
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:arx:papers:1003.2688

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