Although the theoretical foundations of modern finance were laid almost half a century ago (and indeed, many would argue that surprisingly little theoretical progress has been made since then), the empirical side of finance has grown beyond all recognition both in terms of the volume of studies and their rigour. Several key developments coincided to facilitate this development in the subject. Firstly, considerable progress was made in statistical theory and an array of new econometric approaches was developed. Secondly, the availability of computers and computing power increased manyfold, which not only allowed the estimation of sophisticated models and the utilization of approaches involving processor- intensive techniques, but also enabled researchers to store and manipulate large financial databases. Thirdly, researchers are increasingly well trained in advanced quantitative techniques, and the availability of more powerful and yet at the same time more user- friendly statistical software packages have meant that models previously requiring weeks of code writing can now be estimated at the click of a mouse.

虽然现代金融的理论基础几乎在半个世纪前奠定（事实上，许多人会认为，自那时以来理论进展惊人地很少），但无论从研究的数量还是从严谨性来看，金融的经验方面都已发展得远远超出所有人的认识。一些关键的事态发展正好促进了这一主题的发展。首先，统计理论取得了长足的进步，并发展了一系列新的计量经济学方法。其次，计算机的可用性和计算能力增加了许多，这不仅允许对复杂模型进行估计，以及使用涉及处理器密集技术的方法，而且使研究人员能够存储和操作大型金融数据库。第三，研究人员越来越熟悉先进的定量技术，而且更强大、但同时更方便用户的统计软件包的可用性意味着，以前需要编写数周代码的模型现在可以通过鼠标点击来估计。