Economics made simple with physics models

To date, econophysics has mostly been concerned with elucidating the properties of financial markets, complex economic networks, wealth and income distribution and strategic decision making. Its main aim has been to develop a theory for economic systems like that describing critical phenomena in physical systems, one which can explain their behaviour in the neighbourhood of a specific point -- referred to as critical point -- independent of their distinct micro-level features.

One of the features emerging from the issue is that the much coveted idea of universality may be the exception rather than the rule in the economic and the social world. Also, many of the originally proposed models of econophysics can be argued to be simplistic rather than simple. Most importantly, a clear-cut demonstration of superiority of econophysics models over standard economics models has yet to be delivered.

However, the access to large quantities of data, for example, data from financial markets, and the greater availability of computing power continues to drive this data-hungry field forward. Its success stories include the discovery of the 'inverse cubic law', an apparently universal form describing the distribution of fluctuations in stock prices and market indices. Other examples include the development of agent-based models, such as the minority game and asset exchange models, as well as the analysis of economic networks, which is influenced by physicists' analyses of large complex networks.