From Galileo to Modern Economics

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

   PDF

2. Introduction: A Bridge Between Past and Present

   • Gianfranco Tusset

   Pages 1-8

3. Galilean Economics

   • Gianfranco Tusset

   Pages 9-44

4. Engineering Economics

   • Gianfranco Tusset

   Pages 45-63

5. Wealth Distribution

   • Gianfranco Tusset

   Pages 65-86

6. The Dynamics of Aggregates

   • Gianfranco Tusset

   Pages 87-110

7. Asset Pricing Dynamics

   • Gianfranco Tusset

   Pages 111-129

8. Topological Dynamics

   • Gianfranco Tusset

   Pages 131-148

9. Moving on to Econophysics

   • Gianfranco Tusset

   Pages 149-173

10. Epilogue

    • Gianfranco Tusset

    Pages 175-177

11. Back Matter

    Pages 179-210

    PDF

Empirical laws are rare in economics. This book describes efforts to anchor economic knowledge to invariant empirical laws. It links 17th and 18th century Galilean monetary economists to econophysics, a field that emerged in the mid-1990s. This virtual journey from past to present is charted by episodes on aggregates and empirical primacy. It includes the virtually unknown story of 19th century scholars who, by searching for a stricter mathematical approach, paved the way to an ‘engineering’ view of economics. Then there are celebrities like Pareto and his first empirical law governing the distribution of wealth. Pareto and Amoroso sparked a debate on the skewed distribution that spanned decades, ranging from finance to market transformations, to econophysics, with its concepts and tools inherited from statistical physics. The last stage of the journey goes through econophysics and the recent gradual advances it has made, which show how its position vis-à-vis economics has been changing.

• Generalised gamma distribution
• Amoroso
• Gibrat
• Pareto
• Wealth distribution
• Economic equilibrium
• Econophysics
• Modern economics
• Empirical laws
• Galilean economics
• Engineering economics
• Asset pricing dynamics
• Wealth distribution
• Topological dynamics

“Tusset’s book is a thought-provoking study on the origins and development of the peculiar discipline of econophysics … . This may be the most relevant lesson for econophysicists to take home from this interesting book.” (Enrico Petracca, History of Economic Thought and Policy, Vol. 2, 2019)

“This book takes a fascinating journey through several stylized facts, and the economic foundations theorized by the Italian “economic physics” tradition that has its methodological roots in Galileo. Towering figures - of the likes of Pareto - are seen in a convincing new light, in a scenario where heterogeneity, emergence and complexity converge in the world of econophysics.” (Mauro Gallegati, Professor of Macroeconomics, Polytechnic University of Marche)

 

• University of Padova, Padova, Italy

  Gianfranco Tusset

Gianfranco Tusset is Associate Professor in History of Economic Thought, University of Padua, Italy.

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