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Thermodynamic analogies in economics and finance: instability of markets

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  • McCauley, Joseph l.

Abstract

Interest in thermodynamic analogies in economics is older than the idea of von Neumann to look for market entropy in liquidity, advice that was not taken in any thermodynamic analogy presented so far in the literature. In this paper we go further and use a standard strategy from trading theory to pinpoint why thermodynamic analogies necessarily fail to describe financial markets, in spite of the presence of liquidity as the underlying basis for market entropy. Market liquidity of frequently traded assets does play the role of the ‘heat bath‘, as anticipated by von Neumann, but we are able to identify the no-arbitrage condition geometrically as an assumption of translational and rotational invariance rather than (as finance theorists would claim) an equilibrium condition. We then use the empirical market distribution to introduce an asset’s entropy and discuss the underlying reason why real financial markets cannot behave thermodynamically: financial markets are unstable, they do not approach statistical equilibrium, nor are there any available topological invariants on which to base a purely formal statistical mechanics. After discussing financial markets, we finally generalize our result by proposing that the idea of Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand is a falsifiable proposition: we suggest how to test nonfinancial markets empirically for the stabilizing action of The Invisible Hand.

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  • McCauley, Joseph l., 2004. "Thermodynamic analogies in economics and finance: instability of markets," MPRA Paper 2159, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:2159
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    9. McCauley, Joseph L. & Gunaratne, Gemunu H., 2003. "An empirical model of volatility of returns and option pricing," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 329(1), pages 178-198.
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    Cited by:

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    3. Zapart, Christopher A., 2015. "Econophysics: A challenge to econometricians," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 419(C), pages 318-327.
    4. Pichl, Lukáš & Kaizoji, Taisei & Yamano, Takuya, 2007. "Stylized facts in internal rates of return on stock index and its derivative transactions," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 382(1), pages 219-227.
    5. Bucsa, G. & Jovanovic, F. & Schinckus, C., 2011. "A unified model for price return distributions used in econophysics," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 390(20), pages 3435-3443.
    6. Jovanovic, Franck & Schinckus, Christophe, 2017. "Econophysics and Financial Economics: An Emerging Dialogue," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780190205034, Decembrie.
    7. Schinckus, Christophe, 2008. "The financial simulacrum: The consequences of the symbolization and the computerization of the financial market," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 1076-1089, June.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economics; utility; entropy and disorder; thermodynamics; financial markets; stochastic processes;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D5 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium
    • A2 - General Economics and Teaching - - Economic Education and Teaching of Economics

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