Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-r7xzm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T18:16:07.781Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Preface

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2010

Hideaki Aoyama
Affiliation:
Kyoto University, Japan
Yoshi Fujiwara
Affiliation:
Kyoto University, Japan
Yuichi Ikeda
Affiliation:
University of Tokyo
Hiroshi Iyetomi
Affiliation:
Niigata University, Japan
Wataru Souma
Affiliation:
Nihon University, Japan
Hiroshi Yoshikawa
Affiliation:
University of Tokyo
Get access

Summary

Between their first explorations in econophysics and the writing of this book the authors have travelled a long and sometimes winding road. One of our earliest results was the landmark study of personal income distributions in 2000 (Aoyama et al., 2000), which convinced us that thorough empirical study, or ‘phenomenology’ as it is called in physics, was essential for an understanding of society and economics.

Since then, we have carried out research with an emphasis on the real economy, that is, people (workers), companies (corporations), banks, industrial sectors and countries. We have also studied the various markets that play a vital role in the activity and prosperity of actual businesses. As a result we began to think of writing a book focused on the real economy and based on the analysis of very large quantities of empirical data. Such work has been largely ignored by economists because that discipline does not, unfortunately, value the empirical search for regularities. Yet, it is this observation-based approach that lies at the root of the success so evident in physics. Kepler's laws of planetary movement, for example, were extracted from the vast quantity of astronomical data collected by Tycho Brahe and others. There is every reason to expect laborious but ingenious analysis of economic data to lead to progress, perhaps not as dramatic as that of Kepler, but progress nonetheless.

Type
Chapter
Information
Econophysics and Companies
Statistical Life and Death in Complex Business Networks
, pp. xxi - xxii
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×