The Economic Crisis and its Implications for the Science of Economics

Concerns over the current financial situation are giving rise to a need to evaluate the very mathematics that underpins economics as a predictive and descriptive science. A growing desire to examine economics through the lens of diverse scientific methodologies - including physics and complex systems - is making way to a meeting of leading economists and theorists of finance together with physicists, mathematicians, biologists and computer scientists in an effort to evaluate current theories of markets and identify key issues that can motivate new directions for research. Perimeter Institute was suggested to be the gathering point and conference organizers plan to foster a very careful, dispassionate discussion, in an atmosphere governed by the modesty and open mindedness that characterizes the scientific community.

The conference will begin on May 1, 2009, with a day of talks by leading experts to an invited audience on the status of economic and financial theory in light of the current situation. Three days of private, focused discussions and workshops will ensue, aimed at addressing complex questions and defining future research agendas for the world that can help address and resolve them.

Invited Speakers for May 1st Talk

Richard Alexander, University of Michigan
Emanuel Derman, Columbia University and Prisma Capital Partners
Andrew Lo, MIT
Nouriel Roubini, New York University
Nassim Taleb, Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering, NYU-Poly Institute and Principal, Universa Investments
Eric Weinstein, Natron Group

Invited Speakers for the Workshop

Doyne Farmer, Santa Fe University
Jaron Lanier, Scholar at Large. Mircosoft Corporation, and Interdisciplinary Scholar-in-Residence, CET UC Berkeley 
Barkley Rosser, James Madison University
Leigh Tesfatsion, Iowa State University