economics, including neoclassical economics. This monograph essentially solves the problem of practical application of this approach to specific economic systems, namely stock exchanges, since we have enough input data for their quantitative study, i.e., supply and demand quotations, as well as relevant experimental data represented by market prices and trade volumes for theory verification.
Probabilistic economics, as well as many probabilistic theories in various fields of science, primarily in physics, for example, in statistical and quantum physics, is developed in terms of probability distributions. We emphasize that probability distributions are the very thing that forms the basis and language of a probabilistic, scientifically substantiated method for studying complex dynamic systems.
The possibilities of probabilistic economics methods to accurately describe real markets have been demonstrated earlier [Kondratenko, 2005, 2015] using examples of small model commodity economies. In this work the author, on the basis of probabilistic economics, aimed to create the foundations of the stock exchange theory, capable of filling the gaps described above in the modern theory of finance, the results of which will be in good agreement with the experimental stock exchange data. This goal was achieved. Let us specify that it is clear from general considerations that the microscopic theory developed in this study is devoted to the study of various stock exchange structures and processes at the level of exchange agents, and even more precisely – at the level of actions of individual exchange agents. The main purpose of microscopic theory is to describe the process of these structures’ formation based on the specific actions of the agents. First of all, this study will cover the mechanisms of exchange prices and trade volumes formation based on the quotations of market agents (in a particular period of time). It can be figuratively said that this theory gives a microscopic view of the stock exchange and stock exchange phenomena.
The book will show that probabilistic economics provides an adequate, fairly accurate micro- and macroscopic description of the stock exchange, namely, detailed structures and mechanisms of its operation, which were studied to derive certain patterns in the work of stock exchanges, in particular patterns in the prices and trade volumes formation.
We emphasize that for the purposes of this study we made no difference between stock, commodity, currency and other exchanges; the theory developed is equally suitable for describing any exchange where assets are traded, so for brevity in this book we will talk about stock exchanges, or simply exchanges.
As a conclusion, we provide a summary of the monograph with a subjective evaluation of the results obtained and the conclusions drawn in the study. The book outlines the basics of the probabilistic theory of stock exchanges, built on the basis of probabilistic economic theory using agent quotations provided by stock exchanges. By its nature, this theory of exchanges is microscopic, so its analytical and numerical methods make it possible to calculate and describe various exchange microstructures and microprocesses. The calculations of this type were performed for the first time in this study and are also published for the first time. The main attention was paid to the calculation of market prices and trade volumes of various assets (Sberbank shares, Brent oil futures, American dollars) on the Moscow Exchange and Intercontinental Exchange Futures Europe (Brent oil futures) during one trading session, as well as a detailed comparison of the calculation results with the experimental data. This comparison demonstrates a good agreement between theory and experiment, which allows us to state that the monograph has fulfilled the main scientific purpose of the proposed study, namely, to show that the probabilistic economic theory finds experimental confirmation and, thus, acquires solid experimental justification.
This sets it apart from other economic theories of a heuristic or empirical nature. Another important purpose has also been fulfilled, namely to describe in detail the economic mechanism underlying the formation of market prices and trade volumes and serving as a bridge connecting the microscopic and the macroscopic economic world, thus demonstrating the process of macrocosm formation from microcosm, namely how the actions of exchange agents form the action and temporal dynamics of the market as a whole.
A new, universal system of exchange indices of assets, stock exchanges and the global system of exchanges has been developed. By analogy, the strategy of digitalization, forecasting and management of economies on the basis of digital platforms was developed for accumulating plans of economic agents and processing them using the formulas of probabilistic economic theory, which, if implemented, will in turn improve the quality of public administration of the economy of individual countries and the world as a whole.
The monograph demonstrates the importance and significance of stock exchanges as experimental economic laboratories, aimed primarily at testing models, evaluating parameters of models and, ultimately, verifying the existing and new economic theories. While the construction of probabilistic economic theory as an «empirical» laboratory was to a certain extent backed up by the business, the practical 25-year experience of management of which was formalized by the mathematical body of theoretical physics, the development of probabilistic theory of stock exchanges in the study was based on MOEX and ICE as experimental economic laboratories. Step by step, the monograph reveals the enormous prospects for the further use of stock exchanges as powerful up-to-date experimental economic laboratories, which allow us to argue that just as theoretical physics emerged from the science of the solar system some 300–500 years ago, in the near future a modern economic science, consisting of closely interacting theoretical economics and experimental economics, will emerge from the development of stock exchange theory based on exchange experiments that will match all generally accepted standards for physical sciences, while remaining a human and social science.
Acknowledgments
The content of the book is a summary of the results of the project "Quantum Finance Investments of EXCELLENCE Investment Company" in Novosibirsk.
Project participants Vitaly Martynovich and Maria Makarkina contributed greatly to the project's success. Thus, the computer platform QUANTUM FINANCE for calculations of exchange structures using the probabilistic economic theory methods was developed by Vitaliy Martynovich and Maria Makarkina and implemented in C#. Maria Makarkina also provided substantial assistance in preparing this monograph for publication. The author sincerely thanks them for the fruitful cooperation for many years.
The author considers it his duty to thank Dmitry Sviridenko, who undertook the important work of the responsible editor of the monograph, and the reviewers of the monograph, Sergey Parinov and Yuri Perevyshin, for the challenging work of reviewing the manuscript with the new theory at a high professional level.
The author is grateful to the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Alexander von Humboldt – Stiftung), which provided a scholarship that enabled the author many years ago to witness for the first time how developed market economies work and how financial markets function in West Germany.
The author is grateful to Moscow Exchange and Intercontinental Exchange Futures Europe for providing access to historical data and online quotations.
The author is also grateful to the investment companies FINAM and Interactive Brokers for their excellent broker-intermediary functions with the IB and ICE exchanges, respectively.
The author sincerely thanks the first reader of the book manuscript, Konstantin Gluschenko, for critical comments, consideration of which made the material of the book more understandable for readers who hold fundamentally different orthodox economic views.
In conclusion, the author would like to take the opportunity, unfortunately, very late, to pay back some of his old debts.
First, the author would like to thank Vladimir Evstigneev for his informal but very informative and useful review of the author’s first paper on probabilistic economic theory in the collection of papers of the Russian Academy of Sciences and State Administration [Kondratenko, 2005] and Ksenia Kondratenko for her help in preparing the manuscript of this paper. Second, the author notes the important role that Professor George Judge of the University of California (Berkeley) played in this research by approving and enthusiastically supporting that very first paper 15 years ago, for which the author is immensely grateful.
Editor-in-chief
DSc in Physics and Mathematics Professor D.I. Sviridenko
Reviewers:
DSc