The Whitaker Institute at NUI Galway will launch a new book, Econophysics and Physical Economics, on Thursday, 23 January at 2pm in the Cairnes Building on campus. The event will include a special talk with the authors, Professors Peter Richmond, Stefan Hutzler and Jurgen Mimkes.

An understanding of the behaviour of financial assets and the evolution of economies has never been as important as today and Econophysics and Physical Economics looks at these complex systems from the perspective of the physicist. So called 'econophysics' and its application to finance has made great strides in recent years.

For more than a decade, physicists have used the methods and tools based on statistical physics to analyse the complexities of not just natural systems but also financial and economic systems. The research was also stimulated by the ready availability of large data sets in the realm of financial markets. As a result new insights into the nature of financial market fluctuations and other inherent complex dynamics associated with the financial markets were being discovered. This stimulating research program has in turn led to novel approaches to economic theory informed by empirical observations and physical ideas, and continues to articulate an alternative framework for analysing economic systems.

Authors Professors Peter Richmond and Stefan Hutzler of Trinity College Dublin and Professor Jurgen Mimkes, retired Professor of Physics at the University of Paderborn, Germany highlight and discuss these novel approaches in the new book, published by Oxford University Press.

According to Dr Srinivas Raghavendra of the JE Cairnes School of Business and Economics and the Whitaker Institute, “The ongoing economic crisis has severely challenged the current dominant economic model that informs policy. I think a serious attempt to go beyond the established conventional framework has become an urgent necessity of our times. In this respect, Econophysics offers one such alternative framework to think outside the conventional mode and it would be to our benefit that we engage with it and critically examine what it offers.”

For more information on the event please visit www.nuigalway.ie/whitakerinstitute or call 091 495971.

-Ends-