Tools and Measurement Criteria of Ethical Finance Through Computational Finance

This chapter aims to offer the reader a critical reflection on computational finance starting from the principles of ethical finance. With this term, we refer to those principles that arose from the 1970s onwards, are proposed to implement socio-environmental values in financial activities, from savings to employment, also in response to the process of financialization of the economy that has removed finance itself from real life of local populations. Starting from a critical analysis of economic positivism that introduced the massive use of mathematics in economics, it is proposed a reflection on the concept of financial accounting and on the role of the real acquisition power of wages in order to create a financial system that determines anew a socio-environmental horizon to which the economy must strive. With these assumptions, financial tools are proposed based on the principles of ethical finance and how they can promote a process that we call economic socialization, that is to allow finance to carry forward again the social and environmental values necessary for the life of local communities. With these assumptions, the first paragraph introduces the concept and problems of economic positivism and how the process of financialization of the world economy and its impact on the financial system has been produced since 1970. In this context, some theoretical concepts are proposed such as that of the purchasing power of wages to determine a finance linked to the workforce. The second, introduces the principles of ethical finance, from birth to the present day. The third introduces some financial and socio-environmental measurement tools and models of ethical finance that could be introduced in computational finance. Finally, the fourth proposes some conclusions starting from the arguments set out, including the process of economic socialization, or how finance is called to carry forward the socio-environmental values of local communities, under penalty of losing the conditions of real well-being for our societies. In this scenario, it is proposed that finance must respond to a demand for peoples’ rights.