Financial economics: objects and methods of science

andrikopoulos, andreas;

This paper outlines the assumptions on the nature of financial markets and investments that condition the mainstream theory of finance. Explanatory problems of financial economics are associated with the assumptions on financial reality andthe respective method of inquiry, one routed in the practices of (some branches of) natural sciences. In an alternative conception of finance, financial markets are
socially structured and are knowable to investors and theorists through fallible andtransitive perceptions and theories.