*Result*: Chapter 7: Postscript.
*Further Information*
*This chapter presents the author's views on the characteristics model in economics. We hope we have shown that the characteristics model provides an ideal framework for analysing both theoretically and empirically all aspects of the financial system, from portfolio behaviour and asset pricing, through financial intermediation and financial innovation, to the regulatory structure of the financial system itself. We believe that the particular usefulness of the characteristics model lies in its empirical applications. The financial system generates masses of high-quality data on the characteristics of financial assets, economic agents and financial institutions. In addition, there can be a proliferation of measured characteristics, yet the real benefit of the characteristics model comes from being able to explain the behaviour of a large number of variables in terms of a much smaller set of common characteristics. To preserve the model's usefulness as an empirical tool, it is necessary to continue to work with a small number of key characteristics and to convert the remaining minor characteristics into equivalences of the key characteristics which are then aggregated with these key characteristics.*