Probabilistic Theory of Stock Exchanges - страница 15

"In what follows I have endeavored to reduce the complex phenomena of human economic activity to the simplest elements that can still be subjected to accurate observation, to apply to these elements the measure corresponding to their nature, and constantly adhering to this measure, to investigate the manner in which the more complex economic phenomena evolve from their elements according to definite principles".

Carl Menger [2007]

This chapter describes probabilistic economic theory in sufficient detail, starting from the formulation of the most general statement of the problem to the derivation of the fundamental formulas, using the simplest model of a two-agent economy as an example. To begin with and to avoid misunderstandings and ambiguities, let us repeat once again that, according to the ideology of the physical method, probabilistic economics is a theory that is developed using formal methods of theoretical physics or, in other words, by analogy with how theoretical physics is developed, but, fundamentally, it is an economic theory rather than a physical one, since it studies the structure and dynamics of the economic world, where rules are not in any way directly related to physical laws that describe the structure and dynamics of the natural world. This is already clear from the fact that the subjects of the economic world are people and their actions in the processes of exchange of goods and services, whereas the subjects of the physical world are particles and fields, in particular atoms. And, to be definite, let us also emphasize that this new economic theory was based on the classical concept of supply and demand, that was reinterpreted in the style of modern probabilistic scientific thinking.

There is no doubt that the modern real economy is a complex, nonequilibrium, dynamic system. Therefore, it is possible and necessary to actively study its structure and dynamics in different ways and from different points of view. Our point of view is that we look at the economy mainly as a set of a huge number of intelligently thinking and dynamically acting people, each of whom is "not only homo sapiens, but no less than