After a few early isolated cases in the 1980s, since the mid-1990s hundreds of papers dealing with economics and finance have invaded the physics preprint server , initially devoted to condensed matter physics, and now covering subjects as different as computer science, biology or probability theory. The flow of paper posted on this server is still increasing – roughly one per day – addressing a range of problems, from financial data analysis to analytical optionpricing methods, agent-based models of financial markets and statistical models of wealth distribution or company growth. Some papers are genuinely beautiful, others are rediscoveries of results known by economists, and unfortunately some are simply crazy
