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Why does Physica A journal contain economics papers? Like this:

Steve Keen, Russell Standish. Profit maximization, industry structure, and competition: A critique of neoclassical theory. Physica A 370 no. 1 (2006), pp. 81–85. doi:10.1016/j.physa.2006.04.032. Available online at http:// www. debtdeflation.com/ blogs/wp-content/uploads/papers/ KeenStandish2006_CritiqueNeoclassical TheoryOfFirm_PhysicaA370pp81-85.pdf?

I thought Physica A is only about statistics mechanics and its application in economics - I don't see how this paper is related to statistical mechanics....

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Unfortunately, such questions are off topic, see the first section of the faq. Feel free to ask other questions about physical concepts :) – Manishearth♦ Dec 13 '12 at 16:53
@Manishearth OP said "I don't see how this paper is related to statistical mechanics....". That is relevant to physics i guess. – user10001 Dec 13 '12 at 17:27
@dushya: Hmm, I just discussed it in Physics Chat, another mod and a user agree that it's OT. Feel free to chime in, though – Manishearth♦ Dec 13 '12 at 17:33

closed as off topic by twistor59, Manishearth♦ Dec 13 '12 at 16:52

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1 Answer

up vote 2 down vote

The paper does Monte Carlo simulations so I would argue it surely is related to statistical mechanics. What about the authors?

Steve Keen is an economist but Russell Standish is a computer scientist who likes to talk about "ensembles of theories of everything", similarly to Max Tegmark. It's at least a physics-related jargon. For this reason, you may call the paper a research on "physics of the money" instead of "economics" even if it is the same thing.

Still, I would guess the paper was rejected by some economics journal before it was sent to a physics one. But maybe it was rejected because it was too advanced when it comes to the mathematical methods.

Interestingly enough, the most cited followup paper by Moura and Ribeiro was also published in a physics journal – European Physics Journal B for Condensed Matter Physics. The introduction to that paper is interesting because it talks about some physics methods' being imported to economics. You may want to read it in detail because it probably answers your questions fully.

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i think that if you are famous or important you can almost publish in every journal. I have seen papers about the Riemann zeros published in physics journals :D only because they said WKB approximation but the model did not much to do with physics i.e Berry and Keating model – Jose Javier Garcia Dec 13 '12 at 15:41

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