The invisible hand of Laplace: The role of market structure in price convergence and oscillation

The “invisible hand” of the free market is remarkably effective at producing near-equilibrium prices. This is difficult to quantify, however, in the absence of an agreed model for out-of-equilibrium trade. Short of a fully reductionist model, a useful substitute would be a scaling law relating equilibration time and other market parameters. Even this, however, is missing in the literature.