The history of economic thought witnessed several prominent economists who took seriously models and concepts in physics for the elucidation and prediction of economic phenomena. Econophysics is an emerging discipline at the intersection of heterodox economics and the physics of complex systems, with practitioners typically engaged in two overlapping but distinct methodological programs. The first is to export mathematical methods used in physics for the purposes of studying economic phenomena. The second is to export mechanisms in physics into economics. A conclusion is drawn that physics transfer is often justified at the level of mathematical transfer but unjustified at the level of mechanistic transfer.

经济思想史见证了几位杰出的经济学家，他们认真对待物理学中的模型和概念来阐明和预测经济现象。经济物理学是异端经济学和复杂系统物理学交叉的新兴学科，从业者通常从事两个重叠但不同的方法学项目。第一个是输出物理学中用于研究经济现象的数学方法。二是将物理学中的机制输出到经济学中。得出的结论是，物理转移往往在数学转移水平上是合理的，但在机械转移水平上是不合理的。