Graduate Student Seminar

Title:  The Convenient Untruths of Economics and Finance

Speaker: Harbir Lamba, Department of Mathematical Sciences, George Mason University

Abstract: Modern economics and finance are based upon some highly

implausible (but extremely convenient) assumptions about how humans and institutions behave. For example, assuming that people can be modelled as if they are perfectly rational at all times, have no memory, and act independently of each other greatly simplifies the mathematics required!

I will talk about the (often amusing) history of these ideas and their (sometimes disastrous) consequences.  Then I will describe my own research which aims to mathematically describe what happens when these assumptions are weakened and replaced with more realistic ones via agent-based models.