Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy: Markets, Speculation and the State
Introduction Part I. Learning the Game: 1. Apprenticeship 2. Discovering computers 3. Investing in ignorance Part II. Playing the Game: 4. The financial agent 5. The road to BEA 6. Apotheosis Part III. Understanding the Game: The Role of Bubbles: 7. The banality of bubbles 8. Explaining bubbles 9. The necessity of bubbles Part IV. Understanding the Game: The Role of the State: 10. Where is the state? 11. 'The failure of market failure' 12. Tolerating waste.
Physics and financial economics (1776–2014): puzzles, Ising and agent-based models
This short review presents a selected history of the mutual fertilization between physics and economics—from Isaac Newton and Adam Smith to the present. The fundamentally different perspectives embraced in theories developed in financial economics compared with physics are dissected with the examples of the volatility smile and of the excess volatility puzzle. The role of the Ising model of phase transitions to model social and financial systems is reviewed, with the concepts of random utilities and the logit model as the analog of the Boltzmann factor in statistical physics. Recent extensions in terms of quantum decision theory are also covered. A wealth of models are discussed briefly that build on the Ising model and generalize it to account for the many stylized facts of financial markets. A summary of the relevance of the Ising model and its extensions is provided to account for financial bubbles and crashes. The review would be incomplete if it did not cover the dynamical field of agent-based models (ABMs), also known as computational economic models, of which the Ising-type models are just special ABM implementations. We formulate the ‘Emerging Intelligence Market Hypothesis’ to reconcile the pervasive presence of ‘noise traders’ with the near efficiency of financial markets. Finally, we note that evolutionary biology, more than physics, is now playing a growing role to inspire models of financial markets.
The Problems and Opportunities in Developing International Business Programs
This paper discusses the results of a survey conducted among AACSB member schools. The survey dealt with two major topical areas. These were (a) what types of International Business programs currently exist in AACSB Schools, and (b) problems associated with these programs. The paper also suggests countries that offer opportunities to Colleges of Business to pursue countty-specific programs.