I present without mathematical complexity a toy model of the well-known and celebrated Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH). This toy EMH-model aims to illuminate the correspondences between the multiple representations of EMH-models with a focus on the two main mathematical frameworks of EMH: the mean-variance universe of Markowitz (1952) under the “real world” probability P and the martingale pricing universe of Harrison and Kreps (1979) […]
Category: News
‘Ontology of the Financial Transaction’ by Gloria Sansò
At first sight, the nature of actions such as buying and selling seem to be very straightforward and, for this reason, not worthy of a philosophical investigation. A more careful analysis, however, makes plain that this is not the case: the nature of these actions is characterized by considerable ontological complexity, especially when they involve […]
‘Can sustainable finance deliver?’ by Dirk Bezemer
In what sense does the sustainability transition require sustainable finance? Key ideas underlying the assertion that it does, include a view on the nature of private finance as a productive force and a vision of the market economy as transforming financial investments into material change. In this meeting of the Phinance Online Seminars, Dirk critically considers these […]
Agent-based modeling: a paradigm shifting in finance and economics? by
Annalisa Fabretti
Finance and economy are complex systems where many entities with different properties and roles interact continuously. The competitive equilibrium, developed by Arrow and Debreu in 1951, has been, to this day, the fundamental paradigm under which economists work. The traditional approach uses analytically tractable models with a representative perfectly rational agent, usually a profit maximizer. […]
Trading in a Dark pool: benefits and drawbacks by Katia Colaneri
A dark pool is a trading venue alternative to the lit market, where most of the information about execution prices and standing orders is hidden to traders. Such markets have traditionally been used by institutional investors to execute large orders and to mitigate the price impact resulting in standard exchange markets. The reduction of price impact […]
Phinance Biennial Conference 2022
Philosophy & Finance Network – Biennial Conference 8-9 September 2022 Room II, Villa Mirafiori – Dept. Philosophy – Sapienza University of Rome Via Carlo Fea, 2 Open to the public Paolo Barucca (UCL)Boudewijn De Bruin (Groningen)Francesco Guala (Milano Statale)Emiliano Ippoliti (Sapienza)Taylor Spears (Edinburgh)Ekaterina Svetlova (Twente)Melissa Vergara-Fernandez (Erasmus University Rotterdam)Roberto Violi (Bank of Italy)Christian Walter (Paris, MSH) Organization and infoEmiliano […]
‘When models become market infrastructure’ by Taylor Spears
When mathematical models are adopted into new fields, actors within those fields tend to modify them in order to ensure their fit with local practices and infrastructures through a process of ‘translation’. The translation of specific models has been studied, but we know little about how the translation of models into field-specific infrastructures shapes subsequent […]
Cinema, Finance & Society
The Afterlives of Finance Film in the Digital Public Sphere by Constantin Parvulescu
“Once upon a time Wall Street became a favorite subject for Hollywood. After the 2007-2008 crisis, both fiction and documentary films in the US and Europe explored finance with high interest. They earned Oscars, festival awards, and critical acclaim. Their content impacted the public sphere and created a valuable archive for understanding global finance.However, as […]
“Money rules? Two viewpoints” by Francesco Guala & Frank Hindriks
What is money?The answers to this fundamental question are evolving in the last decade, also thanks to electronic money and the theoretical and practical issues that they pose.This meeting of the Phinance Online Seminars will confront two viewpoints on money, defen- ded by Frank Hindriks and Francesco Guala, and will be followed by an open […]
Financial markets: are they epistemically efficient? by Lisa H. Herzog
The Efficient Market Hypothesis popularized the picture according to which financial markets are real-time mirrors of the economy. They are automatically epistemically efficient because all epistemic inefficiencies would be removed by savvy arbitrageurs by incorporating all publicly available knowledge. This would justify the financial market’s central role in economic and public life.Lisa argues against this […]