Sophisticated financial modeling and complex financial products don’t ruin economies. People do.
That’s the message from Jim Weatherall, a brilliant, young professor at the University of California at Irvine. Mr. Weatherall makes his argument in a book due out in January, “The Physics of Wall Street.”
Derivatives and other complex financial instruments took a lot of blame in the 2008 financial crisis, but Mr. Weatherall says it wasn’t because of their use, but rather their misuse.
He also argues that fixing our crisis-prone economy is one of the biggest challenges of our time, and calls for a new sort of Manhattan Project to focus the nation’s best minds on the challenge.
Math and physics, he says, can lead to better management of the economy.
Click here to read my column on Marketwatch.
