Pure theory of economic time : rovelli-simonian meditations

This work seeks to establish the concept of economic time. It seems to us that there exists a specific temporality for economics and finance.

For this purpose, we mobilise the notions of physical time and psychological time and show their contribution.

In order to do so, we propose a critical interpretation of the work of Carlo Rovelli, in the most contemporary domain of physical science and its most recent developments and questionings, and of the work of Herbert Simon, whose efforts, crowned by a Nobel prize for economics, in fact borrow broadly from a multidisciplinary approach to the understanding of decision-making and of behaviour in an environment of limited rationality.

Our method involves comparing our own theoretical and applied work on the question of time within the framework of economic action, with that of these two authors. Such a comparison measures the inspirational contributions and differences in viewpoints. Our express reference to Rovelli-Simonian meditations will, consequently, come as no surprise.

We understand pure theory to mean an exercise of abstraction, seeking to stylise those elements of observed realities and human attitudes which present a high level of persistence. Pure Theory of Economic Time takes place in a multidisciplinary, literary language. Our method is analogical and combines the physical and psychological referentials in order to construct a new framework.