"Finance is one of the few areas of economics in which theories and equations come straight out of academia and are almost immediately applied in the real world. The tools of Traditional finance are heavily used by investors, banks, corporate managers, and government policy makers. The decisions that ride on the back of these ideas range from billions of dollars in trading, to whether two companies will merge, to how central banks set interest rates. Thus, any claim that Traditional finance theory is wrong is an important claim indeed.
Finance theory is also unique in that it is the most empirically tested area of economics. Financial economists have an embarrassment of riches, with minute-by-minute data on the trading of tens of thousands of assets. They are also fortunate because financial markets tend to be old and keep good records, allowing economists to look at data not only at the minute-by-minute level, but also over decades. Unfortunately, as of late, all this data has not been kind to Traditional theory."
~ Hat tip ~ Eric Beinhocker, The Origin of Wealth
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