What is statistical economics? Statistical economics is a formal aggregation of microeconomics into macroeconomics using Gibbs formalism of aggregating individual atoms into thermodynamic systems. The name “statistical economics” is an adaptation of statistical mechanics pioneered by J. Willard Gibbs and Ludwig Boltzmann. This concept arose from my desire as an engineer to understand economic activity from the standpoint of the three (four) laws of thermodynamics. Two papers were fundamental in my choice of this approach.[1,2] Their authors saw the fundamental nature of the problem and I am indebted to their work.

I owe a tremendous debt to those who have gone before me. They are the ones who have done the heavy lifting and conducted the major construction of the various modules I fit together in the initial preparation. I am especially indebted to: Edwin T. Jaynes, Harold Jeffreys, Richard Cox, Claude Shannon, J. Willard Gibbs, Ludwig Boltzmann, Charles S. Peirce, Robert Nozick, John von Neumann, Oskar Morgenstern, Ludwig von Mises, and Fredrick A. Hayek. My debt to them is more than words can express. I offer my work in tribute to theirs.

For those who have contributed to this experiment or are yet to contribute, I am grateful for your effort and for making this idea yours too.

All work on this experiment is done under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 ShareAlike license. All contributors to this experiment make their contributions with the understanding that the aforementioned license applies to their work. The peer review process is done by the readers with comments being open and non-anonymous. This is an experiment on multiple levels including the peer review process.  Amateurs are welcome to come and participate in the experiment. To exclude amateurs is to exclude myself.

The statistical economic experiment is structured as an open source software project, tailored for academic research. The site is divided into three main parts: release versions, beta versions, and developmental versions. Each paper is intended as a module or app if you prefer fitting together to form a comprehensive corpus, OS. Other distributions are of course welcome. However, they are subject to the same Creative Commons license.

I am grateful that you decided to come see what this experiment is about and hope that you will stay to participate.

Cal Abel
Atlanta, GA
February 13, 2013

If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations—then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation—well these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

-Sir Arthur Eddington [3]

1. Jaynes, E. T. (1991). “How should we use entropy in economics?”.
2. Saslow, W. M. (1999). “An Economic Analogy to Thermodynamics” American Journal of Physics 67(12): 1239-1247.
3. Eddington, A., S. (1927). “The Nature of the Physical World“ Gifford Lectures 74.

Statistical Economics is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at statisticaleconomics.org.