The Statistical Mechanics of Financial Markets

The third edition of this highly praised reference offers new chapters on the basic notions and tools of risk management, and capital requirements for financial institutions, including an overview of the new Basel II capital framework which may well set the risk management standards in scores of countries for years to come. Using empirical financial data and analogies to physical models such as fluid flows, turbulence, or superdiffusion, the book develops a more accurate description of financial markets based on random walks. This approach permits the formulation of novel methods for derivative pricing and risk management.

Basic Information on Capital Markets.- Random Walks in Finance and Physics.- The Black-Scholes Theory of Option Prices.- Scaling in Financial Data and in Physics.- Turbulence and Foreign Exchange Markets.- Derivative Pricing Beyond Black-Scholes.- Microscopic Market Models.- Theory of Stock Exchange Crashes.- Risk Management.- Economic and Regulatory Capital for Financial Institutions.

From the reviews of the third edition:

"An excellent job of integrating many of the most important themes from econophysics in a relatively small volume. ... The book serves its purpose, as a textbook on econophysics, superbly and one can tell that it developed from a course of lectures. The book is written with extreme clarity and an excellent pedagogical style. For philosophers who wish to acquaint themselves with the field of econophysics (beyond a superficial level), this is the book to invest in." (Dean Rickles, Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, Vol. 38, 2007)