The supply of peer-reviewed research is kept artificially low in areas where traditionally distinct fields intersect. The mechanism is simple. Legacy distinctions between fields favor research that can be easily categorized for the purposes of grant applications, university budgeting decisions and teaching assignments.
The costs of these types of institutional impediments to collaboration across fields are well known. Large numbers of research silos develop separate nomenclature, notation and ultimately literature to study what are only a small number of distinct concepts. Hence, each are burdened to “re-invent the wheel.” Alas, some of the most striking puzzles of day-to-day social and economic life are not addressed by any scientific field.
Markets and Institutions is a collection of non-technical writing on topics connecting economics, epistemology, evolution, finance, physics, political science and statistics. Many of the ideas are relevant for understanding market dynamics, which are concomitants of complex, non-stationary evolutionary systems – and, remarkably, the latter exhibit regularities.
Markets and Institutions is now on Substack!
protean 