Comments on: The Physics of Wall Street http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/the-physics-of-wall-street/ taking the most charitable view of those who disagree Mon, 21 Dec 2020 16:41:22 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.0.32 By: Jack http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/the-physics-of-wall-street/#comment-6627 Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:41:25 +0000 http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/?p=365#comment-6627 Sorry — I forgot to add that the method of publishing research is very different in the natural and physical sciences. I liken it to how you slice a pizza (borrowing from M&M). In STEM fields, research is sliced finely and published in large numbers of small papers (cut a pizza into 128 slices, say), while economics and some other social sciences publish work as fewer, larger pieces. Physics journals accept 90% of submissions (even 75% in the best ones, according to their own data) and articles are very short and huge in number. That is not to say one system is better or worse, they are just fundamentally different. For example, most econophysics articles would not pass muster in good economics journals, simply because they are too ”slight” and incomplete. The diffusion of research is just done differently.

]]> By: Jack http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/the-physics-of-wall-street/#comment-6625 Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:36:13 +0000 http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/?p=365#comment-6625 I think economists are indeed snotty toward other scientists who suggest importing their tools into economics, but to be fair, this is partly because other scientists typically make no effort to read and understand economics. They identify a research question and data, propose a biological or physical model, and interpret the results using their own lens, paying no attention to what has already been written on the subject by economists.

In contrast, several economists have adapted tools from natural sciences (or other social sciences) and successfully published (Akerlof, Thaler, Kirman, Hirshman(?), Gabaix, and many others).

So I think it is not hostility to the tools and knowledge of other fields, but the attitude that other scientists bring with them when they study economic questions.

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