IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/0902.4274.html

Time and symmetry in models of economic markets

Author

Listed:
  • Lee Smolin

Abstract

These notes discuss several topics in neoclassical economics and alternatives, with an aim of reviewing fundamental issues in modeling economic markets. I start with a brief, non-rigorous summary of the basic Arrow-Debreu model of general equilibrium, as well as its extensions to include time and contingency. I then argue that symmetries due to similarly endowed individuals and similar products are generically broken by the constraints of scarcity, leading to the existence of multiple equilibria. This is followed by an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the model generally. Several of the weaknesses are concerned with the treatments of time and contingency. To address these we discuss a class of agent based models. Another set of issues has to do with the fundamental meaning of prices and the related question of what the observables of a non-equilibrium, dynamic model of an economic market should be. We argue that these issues are addressed by formulating economics in the language of a gauge theory, as proposed originally by Malaney and Weinstein. We review some of their work and provide a sketch of how gauge invariance can be incorporated into the formulation of agent based models.

Suggested Citation

  • Lee Smolin, 2009. "Time and symmetry in models of economic markets," Papers 0902.4274, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:0902.4274
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/0902.4274
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sonnenschein, Hugo, 1972. "Market Excess Demand Functions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 40(3), pages 549-563, May.
    2. J. Doyne Farmer & John Geanakoplos, 2008. "The virtues and vices of equilibrium and the future of financial economics," Papers 0803.2996, arXiv.org.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Martin Gremm, 2016. "Global Gauge Symmetries, Risk-Free Portfolios, and the Risk-Free Rate," Papers 1605.03551, arXiv.org.
    2. Jason Smith, 2015. "Information equilibrium as an economic principle," Papers 1510.02435, arXiv.org.
    3. Leiashvily, Paata, 2017. "The Relativity Theory of General Economic Equilibrium," MPRA Paper 83291, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Leiashvily, Paata, 2018. "The frame of reference for new economic thinking," MPRA Paper 84563, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bell, William Paul, 2009. "Adaptive interactive expectations: dynamically modelling profit expectations," MPRA Paper 38260, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 09 Feb 2010.
    2. Bell, William Paul & Zheng, Xuemei, 2018. "Inclusive growth and climate change adaptation and mitigation in Australia and China : Removing barriers to solving wicked problems," MPRA Paper 84509, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Kelvin Lancaster, 1975. "The Theory of Household Behavior: Some Foundations," NBER Chapters, in: Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 4, number 1, pages 5-21, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Charalambos Aliprantis & Kim Border & Owen Burkinshaw, 1996. "Market economies with many commodities," Decisions in Economics and Finance, Springer;Associazione per la Matematica, vol. 19(1), pages 113-185, March.
    5. Gebhard Kirchgässner, 2013. "Zur Rolle der Ökonometrie in der wissenschaftlichen Politikberatung," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 14(1-2), pages 3-30, February.
    6. Lilia Maliar & Serguei Maliar, 2005. "An Analytical Construction Of Constantinides¿ Social Utility Function," Working Papers. Serie AD 2005-25, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    7. A. Fiori Maccioni, 2011. "The risk neutral valuation paradox," Working Paper CRENoS 201112, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia.
    8. Donovan Platt, 2022. "Bayesian Estimation of Economic Simulation Models Using Neural Networks," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 59(2), pages 599-650, February.
    9. Icefield, William, 2020. "Nature and Logic," OSF Preprints btg7q, Center for Open Science.
    10. Silvano Cincotti & Marco Raberto & Andrea Teglio, 2022. "Why do we need agent-based macroeconomics?," Review of Evolutionary Political Economy, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 5-29, April.
    11. Sabiou M. Inoua & Vernon L. Smith, 2020. "The Classical Theory of Supply and Demand," Working Papers 20-11, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    12. Torsten Trimborn & Philipp Otte & Simon Cramer & Maximilian Beikirch & Emma Pabich & Martin Frank, 2020. "SABCEMM: A Simulator for Agent-Based Computational Economic Market Models," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 55(2), pages 707-744, February.
    13. Bonnisseau, Jean-Marc, 2003. "Regular economies with non-ordered preferences," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3-4), pages 153-174, June.
    14. Douglas, Niall Edward, 2006. "Explain ‘conjectural variation’ in Cournot duopoly, evaluate its impacts and discuss the policy implication," MPRA Paper 13652, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Erhard Glötzl & Florentin Glötzl & Oliver Richters, 2019. "From constrained optimization to constrained dynamics: extending analogies between economics and mechanics," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 14(3), pages 623-642, September.
    16. Donald C. Keenan & Taewon Kim, 2022. "Closing the invisible hand: a rehabilitation of tâtonnement dynamics," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 17(3), pages 681-711, July.
    17. Kemp-Benedict, Eric, 2013. "Material needs and aggregate demand," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 16-26.
    18. Daisuke ADACHI & Yukiko SAITO, 2020. "Multinational Production and Labor Share," Discussion papers 20012, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    19. David Staines, 2023. "Stochastic Equilibrium the Lucas Critique and Keynesian Economics," Papers 2312.16214, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2024.
    20. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1991. "Methodological Issues and the New Keynesian Economics," NBER Working Papers 3580, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:0902.4274. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.