Text
Numerical methods in Economics
Computers are increasingly important in human activities. In order to harness the full power of this technology, economists will need to learn a broad range of techniques from the numerical mathematics literature. This book presents these techniques and shows how they can be useful in economic analysis. This book is the result of my studying, teaching, and using numerical methods in economics. I have used drafts of this book in courses at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and the Departments of Economics at Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, and Tel Aviv University. I thank them for letting me use their students as test subjects in this endeavor. This book is intended to be suitable for second-year doctorate student in economics. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with just the basics of linear algebra, multivariate calculus, probability, econometrics, optimization, competitive general equilibrium theory, Nash equilibrium, optimal control, and dynamic programming. I draw on this material for examples, and I limit them to be relatively simple. Many graduate student research assistants have assisted me in this book and the research behind it. I first thank Antonio Bernardo, Clark Burdick, Pamela Chang, Kwang-Soo Cheong, Jess Gaspar, Sy-Ming Guu, Felix Kubler, Michael Lee, Bo Li, Karl Schmedders, Andrew Solnick, and Sevin Yeltekin. I must single out Ben Wang for his exceptionally careful reading of the manuscript and numerous suggestions. I have also benefited from discussions with many others. I must mention William Brock, Larry Christiano, John Geweke, Wouter den Haan, Mordecai Kurz, Michael Magill, Steve Matthews, John Rust, Ariel Pakes, Harry Paarsch, Stan Reiter, Tom Sargent, Chris Sims, and Joseph Traub and apologize to the others who are not listed here. I thank the Hoover Institution for providing me with the resources and time needed for a long-term project such as this. I also thank the National Science Foundation for its generous support. Most of all, I am indebted to the taxpayers of the state of Wisconsin, whose support of higher education made it possible for me to pursue a life of study and research. Finally, I am grateful for the understanding and patience of Teresa Terry Judd, who married me despite my absorption in writing this book. Computers are changing economic science, offering economists the opportunity to examine economic issues with far greater generality and precision. Some changes are evolutionary, such as more sophisticated empirical analysis and improvements in applied general equilibrium. More important and radical are the new ways economists are using computation to explore economic theories in far greater detail than pure theory alone can, to determine which problems are important and which are not, and to examine new models of agent behavior and social interactions. If economists are to make full use of the power of computational technology, they must have a firm grasp of the key mathematical techniques used in computational analyses. This book presents many techniques from numerical analysis and applied mathematics that have been or are likely to be useful in computational analyses of economic problems. The purpose of this text is to teach the reader the basic methods so that he can effectively apply the computer to substantive problems in economics. Along the way the reader will hopefully learn some economics as well. This chapter describes the book's goals, discusses the many roles of computation in economics, and gives an overview of the topics covered in this book. Computation is not new in economics. However, in recent years economists have expanded the range of problems they can analyze computationally and the roles for computation in economic analysis. We first discuss what economists now know how to compute and how they are applying computational methods. We then present some examples of computational successes in other sciences that illustrate how important computation has become. We next argue that the computational power available today is negligible compared to what will soon be available, and that the advantages of computational approaches will grow rapidly. We conclude this chapter with some basic mathematical notation and theorems we will rely on.
Ketersediaan
| Call Number | Location | Available |
|---|---|---|
| Tan 339. 015 195 Jud m | PSB lt.dasar - Pascasarjana | 2 |
| Penerbit | London The MIT Press., 1998 |
|---|---|
| Edisi | - |
| Subjek | - |
| ISBN/ISSN | 9780262100717 |
| Klasifikasi | NONE |
| Deskripsi Fisik | - |
| Info Detail Spesifik | - |
| Other Version/Related | Tidak tersedia versi lain |
| Lampiran Berkas | Tidak Ada Data |