QLS Guest Seminar - Friday, 26 July

[Quantitative Life Sciences]

QLS Guest Seminar - Friday, 26 July at 11h30

ICTP, Central Area, 2nd floor, SISSA Building, via Beirut 2


Speaker:  Ole Peters - London Mathematical Laboratory

Title: The ergodicity problem in economics

Abstract: The ergodicity problem queries the equality or inequality of 
time averages and expectation values. I will trace its curious history, 
beginning with the origins of formal probability theory in the context 
of gambling and economic problems in the 17th century. This is long 
before ergodicity was a word or a known concept, which led to an 
implicit assumption of ergodicity in the foundations of economic theory. 
200 years later, when randomness entered physics, the ergodicity 
question was made explicit. Over the past decade my collaborators and I 
have asked what happens to foundational problems in economic theory if 
we export what is known about the ergodicity problem in physics and 
mathematics back to economics. Many problems can be resolved. Following 
an overview of our theoretical and conceptual progress, I will report on 
a recent experiment that strongly supports our view that human economic 
behavior is better described as optimizing time-average growth rates of 
wealth than as optimizing expectation values of wealth or utility of wealth

Indico web page: http://indico.ictp.it/event/8991/


Everyone interested is most welcome to attend!

-- 
Erica Sarnataro
Group Secretary
Quantitative Life Sciences
The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP)
Trieste,  Italy
Tel. +39-040-2240623
www.ictp.it/research/qls.aspx
e-mail:qls at ictp.it