Berlin 2012 – scientific programme

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SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme

SOE 5: Focus Session: Big Data

SOE 5.4: Invited Talk

Monday, March 26, 2012, 16:30–17:00, HE 101

Econophysics and social research with large sets of data — •Rosario N. Mantegna — Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Palermo, Viale delle Scienze Ed. 18, 90128, Palermo, Italy

The interaction between physics, economics and social sciences, that econophysicists have pursued over the past twenty years, is based on the idea of using statistical physics methods and paradigms to describe economic and social systems. This interaction is not new, for example, Daniel Bernoulli introduced one of the key concepts of Economics, i.e. the utility function while he was also contributing to hydrodynamics. The interaction was not only in the old past but it has been present in other periods of the history of science. For example, it was proposed again, in the last century, by Ettore Majorana in its tenth article published posthumously in 1942. However, the recent contribution of econophysicists in the analysis and modeling of economic and social systems presents specific aspects because nowadays economic and social sciences have switched from disciplines characterized by a low rate of data production to disciplines with a high rate of data production. Today the society produces an enormous amount of data from scientific, social and business activities. The latter type of data is a gold mine for the study of economic and social phenomena when searching for stylized facts (a technical term used to indicate statistical regularities). The data mining of these data allows the building of an empirical base that is used in the modeling of economic and social phenomena taking into account statistical regularities observed empirically.