This chapter provides a unified framework for interpreting a wide range of interactions models which have appeared in the economics literature. It also provides a unified discussion of the use of statistical mechanics methods in the study of socioeconomic behavior. The framework bears a close relationship to econometric models of discrete choice and, therefore, holds the potential for rendering interactions models estimable. A number of new applications of statistical mechanics to socioeconomic problems are suggested. At first glance, statistical mechanics methods, which underlie the theory of condensed matter, would appear to have little to do with socioeconomic phenomena related to inequality. An important goal of this chapter is to show how statistical mechanics structures naturally arise in a number of socioeconomic environments. The statistical mechanics-inspired models of socioeconomic phenomena that typically have been studied focus on environments in which each individual of a group faces a binary choice.
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