Econophysics: A new discipline

Abstract

This paper debates the contribution of Econophysics to the economic or financial domains. Since the traditional approach performed by Economics or Finance has revealed to be insufficient in fully characterizing and explaining the correspondingly phenomena, we discuss whether Econophysics can provide a new insight onto these matters. Thus, an assessment is presented in order to weight its potential opportunities and limitations. This is particularly relevant as it is widely recognized that during its yet short existence Econophysics has experienced a growing interest not only by physicists but also by economists in searching for new approaches that could help explaining existing questions. In fact, many papers have been submitted, some books have been released, new journals have been published, several conferences have been held, a site is maintained -- http://www.unifr.ch/econophysics where news, events, book reviews, papers and a blog are exhibited; a 3-year licentiate studies (University of Silesia [1]) and a B.Sc. course (University of Wroclaw [2]) have been created and also some Ph.D. thesis have been written. Therefore, a fundamental question arises: Is this just a fad or is it something much more consistent that will prevail? This is what this paper addresses