The overall objectives of this review and synthesis are to study the basics of information-theoretic methods in econometrics, to examine the connecting theme among these methods, and to provide a more detailed summary and synthesis of the sub-class of methods that treat the observed sample moments as stochastic. Within the above objectives, this review focuses on studying the inter-connection…
This book presents the proceedings of the European Symposium on Management, Quality and Economics in Housing and other Building Sectors held in Lisbon, from 30 September to 4 October, 1991. The Symposium was organized by the Civil Engineering Department of the Technical University of Lisbon (Instituto Superior Técnico), Portugal and the University of Salford, Surveying Department, United King…
Financial economics plays a far more prominent role in the training of economists than it did even a few years ago. This change is generally attributed to the parallel transformation in capital markets that has occurred in recent years. It is true that trillions of dollars of assets are traded daily in financial markets—for derivative securities like options and futures, for example—that h…
National and global macro econometric modelling has had a long and venerable history in the UK, with important implications for macroeconomic policy in general and monetary policy in particular. It is an activity that involves sustained research input of several investigators with a variety of skills. The present work is not an exception and its completion has required the enthusiasm and commit…
The Current Issues series has slightly unusual origins. Current Issues in International Trade, which Macmillan published in 1987 and which turned out to be the pilot for the series, was in fact 'conceived' in the Horton Hospital, Banbury, and 'delivered' (in the sense of completed) in the Hilton International in Nicosia! The reader may be struck by the thought that a more worthwhile and enjoyab…
Stochastic Methods in Economics and Finance introduces the reader to certain mathematical techniques by presenting both their theoretical elements and their applications. Topics such as martingale methods, stochastic processes, optimal stopping, the modeling of uncertainty using a Wiener process, Ito's lemma as a tool of stochastic calculus, basic facts about stochastic differential equations…
In September 2005 we organized a conference at the University of Cassino, Italy, the aim of which was to explore ‘The Keynesian Legacy in Macro- economic Modelling’. In the postwar period, macroeconomic modelling of developed economies was mainly rooted in Keynesian theory up to the 1970s, when the failure of applied models to deal with stagflation led to a shift in economic theory towards …
Keynes’s General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money is undoubtedly regarded as the most important book on economics in the twentieth century, and this view would be shared, I think, by those who are wholly opposed to its teaching as well as by its adherents. Nearly 50 years after its appearance controversy still rages around its basic ideas and prescriptions, and I do not think that a…
This book provides a detailed treatment of micro econometric analysis, the analysis of individual-level data on the economic behavior of individuals or firms. This type of analysis usually entails applying regression methods to cross-section and panel data. The book aims at providing the practitioner with a comprehensive coverage of statistical methods and their application in modern applied m…
This chapter examines whether differences in the efficiency of the use of indirect energy of Dutch arable farms are attributable to differences in management. To do so, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was used to assess farm-specific efficiency scores for fertilisers — the input most important for energy conservation in crop farming. Next, using the concept of strategic management, the qualit…
Each of the chapters in this volume concerns some aspect of economists' use of controlled experiments. Since the mid-1970s this kind of work has been transformed from a seldom encountered curiosity to a small but well-established and growing part of the economic literature. This transformation has been rapid. For example, when I began my own experimental work about a dozen years ago, it was mos…
A review of the past 40 years reveals that economic policymaking has been profoundly influenced by two major phenomena. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Keynesian "revolution" made its debut on the stage of economic policy and determined the actions of policymakers in the Western world. The last two decades of the past millennium intum were influenced by the phenomenon of privatization. While the …
1. Political economy or economics is a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life; it examines that part of individual and social action which is most closely connected with the attainment and with the use of the material requisites of wellbeing. Thus it is on the one side a study of wealth; and on the other, and more important side, a part of the study of man. For man's character has b…
The main aim of this book is to introduce the ideas of the neo-Austrian school of economics and to compare these ideas with the more familiar methods of conventional or orthodox economics. Many well-known introductory textbooks meant for the use of prospective accountants or business studies graduates, whose main interest is not in economics, typically make great use of graphical diagrams of eq…
At present, problems of optimization of the interaction between nature and human society can be solved only by the joint efforts of a wide range of specialists. The elaboration and realization of plans of socio-economic development for individual countries and regions should be based on the principles of preservation of balance in the biosphere, biogeocenoses, landscapes and other natural com…
The word ‘socialism’ is apt to produce strong feelings, of enthusiasm, cynicism, hostility. It is the road to a future just society, or to serfdom. It is the next stage of an ineluctable historical process, or a tragic aberration, a cul-de-sac, into which the deluded masses are drawn by power-hungry agitator-intellectuals. My own attitude will emerge in the pages that follow. Let me make it…
This collection reflects the rather wide range of my interests, from the history of Russian economic thought to the contemporary Soviet scene, as well as questions relating to socialism and the role and limitations of markets. Major changes are taking place in the Soviet Union and in a number of other communist-ruled countries, changes which involve decisive strengthening of market forces and a…
Léon Walras may rightfully be considered as one of the founding fathers of mathematical economics. Much of mathematical economics developed since Walras’s time has gradually become common knowledge in economics. This means that Walras directly and indirectly has had a marked influence upon our science as it stands now. It is therefore important to know how Walras came to his results, what…
During the last decade the literature on Léon Walras has expanded enormously and, if the signs are right, there is more to come. Undoubtedly, the increased attention for the work of Walras has a lot to do with the increased accessibility of the work through the publication of the collected works by the Centre Walras at the University of Lyon and the archival work at the Centre Walras & Pareto…
This monograph examines the domain of classical political economy using the method- ologies developed in recent years both by the new discipline of econo-physics and by computing science. This approach is used to re-examine the classical subdivisions of political economy: production, exchange, distribution and finance. The book begins by examining the most basic feature of economic life – pr…
A search for “human ecology” on the Google search engine produces an over- whelming 55 million results. A more traditional academic search, at the University of California, Berkeley library produces 903 references, which are scattered in various libraries ranging from Bioscience to Business and Economics and Environmental Design. Textbooks proposing to summarize this field include the early…
Would you rather live in a world without blood transfusions or a world without maritime insurance? Blood transfusions are dramatic and memorable (which is why we see them on prime-time hospital shows), while the facilitation of commerce through risk sharing is routine and easily taken for granted. But I'd be willing to bet that by almost any measure, three centuries of organized insurance marke…
In the last two decades there has been a flourishing of research carried out jointly by economists, psychologists, and neuroscientists. This meltdown of barriers between competences has led toward original approaches to investigate the mental and cognitive mechanisms involved in the way the economic agent collects, processes, and uses information to make choices. This research field involves …
One clearly evident dimension is research. Certain authors introduce quite new intellectual approaches into scientific debate. This requires a special frame of mind and a searching curiosity about social reality. Carl Gustav Jung identified a phenomenon which he called systematic blindness: when a science reaches a stage of maturity and equilibrium, it categorically refuses, from a sense of sel…
Have you ever wondered about the meaning of a word, a phrase, or an acronym in international economics? I often do. So I have looked them up, written their definitions, and listed these in a glossary that I have assembled over the last several years on my web site. With that I have frequently been able to refresh my own failing memory, since having written the definitions, I often forget them…
The material in the main text ranges from a revision of high-school mathematics to applications of calculus (single-variate, multivariate and integral) to economics and finance. For example: linear and quadratic functions are introduced in the context of demand and supply analysis; geometric sequences, exponential and logarithmic functions are introduced in the context of finance; single-variat…
This is a collection of my main essays on econometric methodology from the period 1974– 85 during which the approach developed into its present form, integrated by a commentary on the motivations, personalities and ideas central to its formalization. Sue Corbett of Blackwell Publishers initiated the idea of drawing together the main steps through which the methodology had evolved,since a deve…
This book is a descriptive and critical bibliography of works on the philosophy of individualism. I have applied the term "individualism" in a broad sense. The bibliography includes books which explain the processes and advantages of free trade, free enterprise and free markets; which recognize the evils of excessive state power; and which champion the cause of individual freedom of worship, …