Academic notes on quantum finance, and economic research on Eurasia, with Kazakhstan and Armenia at its centre.
How far can the value added generated by Armenia's external economic activity give rise to new industries and new demand at home? Drawing on the central bank, the IMF, the World Bank and other sources, this article examines the expansion and contraction of re-exports since 2022, the digital balance as seen through ICT services exports and charges for the use of intellectual property, the inflow of IT workers and its effects on wages and housing prices, capital flows through remittances, direct investment and the banking sector together with external debt, and the structure of firms that raise funds abroad, and sets out the author's view alongside the limits of the statistics.
Kazakhstan shares a 7,591 km border with Russia and a 1,783 km border with China. Drawing on the statistical office, treaty texts, the CPC and the World Bank, this article examines the ethnic Russian population concentrated in the north, the alliance treaty with Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union, the "Silk Road Economic Belt" proposed in Astana in 2013, the weight of the two countries in trade and the discrepancies between their statistics, the dependence on routes through Russia of the CPC pipeline that carries more than 80% of crude exports, and why the Middle Corridor grew after 2022 and where its limits lie.
Restated in statistical terms, moving averages and chart patterns ask one question: once we condition on past prices, does the distribution of subsequent returns change? This note sets out the classic studies that tested that question, and the problem of data snooping — where the choice of rules itself shapes the result.
Population about 20.6 million; capital Astana. An overview of basic country data, including the new constitution of 2026, the resource and heavy-industry regions and cities that sustain the economy beyond Astana and Almaty, the size and structure of the economy, oil and uranium exports and transport routes, inflation-targeting monetary policy and the tenge, STEM education, IT, AI and fintech, and the state of the country's two stock exchanges, drawn from the statistical office, the National Bank and international institutions.
Population about 3.1 million; capital Yerevan. An overview of basic country data, the cities and regions beyond Yerevan that sustain the Armenian economy, the size and structure of the economy, trade and the exchange rate, inflation-targeting monetary policy, STEM education, IT, AI and fintech, and the state of the securities market, drawn from the statistical office, the central bank and international institutions.
The terms "quantum finance" and "quantum-inspired" are used for three very different kinds of research: computing on quantum computers, classical algorithms inspired by quantum algorithms, and models that describe markets with the mathematics of quantum mechanics. This note sets out what each claims and how each should be judged.
A quantum random walk replaces the coin toss of a classical random walk with a quantum-mechanical operation. Probability amplitudes, not probabilities, are added together, so interference occurs; the distribution spreads in proportion to time and, from a symmetric initial state, takes on a two-peaked shape. This note explains the mechanism and the current state of research applying it to finance.
The hypothesis that share prices follow a random walk goes back to 1900. It holds up well for the direction of price changes and fails for the distribution of their size. This note sets out, from the classic studies, where it holds and where it breaks down.