Massimo Salzano - Böcker

This volume contains papers that provide an analysis of topics in the following areas: Agent Based Models, Non-linear Time Series Analysis, Financial Market Dynamics, Econo-physics, Deterministic Chaos, Macroeconomic Dynamics.Economics: Complex Windows, does not present contributions to the sterile debate as to the merits of the different grand, or potentially grand paradigms of economics. Rather it offers a balanced collection of methodological advances which can be applied to concrete economic problems. Starting with a presentation of the "complexity approach" to economics, it goes on to provide a collection of applications to areas such as the analysis of market imperfections, risk assessment, non-linear dynamics, forecasting and highly irregular fluctuations. The basic idea is to encourage economic researchers to embrace a more open and pragmatic approach to economics rather than to reluctantly move in this direction as if it were somehow a betrayal of established dogma.

To do science is to find patterns, and scientists are always looking for p- terns that they can use to structure their thinking about the world around them. Patterns are found in data, which is why science is inevitably a qu- titative study. But there is a difficulty in finding stable patterns in the data since many patterns are temporary phenomena that have occurred r- domly, and highly sophisticated empirical methods are necessary to dist- guish stable patterns from temporary or random patterns. When a scientist thinks he has found a stable pattern, he will generally try to capture that pattern in a model or theory. A theory is essentially a pattern, and thus theory is a central part of science. It would be nice to have a single pattern - a unified theory - that could serve as a map relating our understanding with the physical world around us. But the physical world has proven far too complicated for a single map, and instead we have had to develop smaller sub maps that relate to small areas of the physical world around us. This multiple theory approach presents the pr- lem of deciding not only what the appropriate map for the particular issue is, but also of handling the map overlays where different maps relate to overlapping areas of reality. It is not only science that is focused on finding patterns; so too are most individuals.

“In some ways, the e?ect of achieving understanding is to reverse completely our initial attitude of mind. For everyone starts (as we have said) by being perplexed by some fact or other: for instance... the fact that the diagonal of a square is incommensurable with the side. Anyone who has not yet seen why the side and the diagonal have no common unit regards this as quite extra- dinary. But one ends up in the opposite frame of mind... for nothing would so much ?abbergast a mathematician as if the diagonal and side of a square were to become commensurable”. [Aristotele] This is the ?rst volume of a new series entitled “New Economic Windows”. Each volume in the series will, we hope, provide pointers towards a better understanding of the nature of economic phenomena and help to “reverse our initial state of mind” as economists. As H. Simon observed, Economics must be considered a “hard”, (in the sense of di?cult rather than precise), science. As he cogently argued, the problems dealt with are so complex they “cannot simply be reduced to analytically solvable models or decomposed into sepa- 1 rate sub processes”. In this he was following on from Einstein who, many years earlier, when asked why he had not turned his attention to economics said that he found it too di?cult a subject to handle scienti?cally.