Economists' Mathematical Manual

By Arne Strom, Knut Sydsæter, Peter Berck, et al.

Book Overview

The fourth edition is augmented by more than 70 new formulas. In particular, we have included some key concepts and results from trade theory, games of incomplete information and combinatorics. In addition there are scattered additions of new formulas in many chapters. Again we are indebted to a number of people who has suggested corrections, - provements and new formulas. In particular, we would like to thank Jens-Henrik Madsen, Larry Karp, Harald Goldstein, and Geir Asheim. In a reference book, errors are particularly destructive. We hope that readers who ?nd our remaining errors will call them to our attention so that we may purge them from future editions. Oslo and Berkeley, May 2005 Knut Syds ter, Arne Str m, Peter Berck From the preface to the third edition Thepracticeofeconomicsrequiresawide-rangingknowledgeofformulasfrommat- matics, statistics, andmathematicaleconomics. Withthisvolumewehopetopresent a formulary tailored to the needs of students and working professionals in economics. In addition to a selection of mathematical and statistical formulas often used by economists, this volume contains many purely economic results and theorems. It containsjusttheformulasandtheminimumcommentaryneededtorelearnthema- ematics involved. We have endeavored to state theorems at the level of generality economists might ?nd useful. In contrast to the economic maxim, "everything is twice more continuously di?erentiable than it needs to be", we have usually listed theregularityconditionsfortheoremstobetrue.Wehopethatwehaveachieveda level of explication that is accurate and useful without being pedantic.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 3540260889
• ISBN13: 9783540260882
• Release Date: July 2005
• Publisher: Springer
• Length: 225 Pages
• Weight: 1.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

All the formulae an economist needs

Economists' Mathematical Manual is a very good book. It gives in a very concise and clear way all an economist needs as far as maths and statistics are concerned. I would recommend the purchase!

Excellent reference and then some..

This book is great. It provides an outstanding reference tool for graduate, but also undergraduate students. Even if you're not entirely into studying economics, and only come up against it occasionally, you can get your money's worth with this title. I purchased this as a reference while finishing undergraduate work and I'm sure it will serve me well in graduate school as well. Don't miss this, and buy a copy while it's available.

Extremely Condensed and Extremely Useful!

Sydsaeter et al. have compiled what must be the most condensed reference book in the field, given its amazingly broad scope but small number of pages. Just a few of the multitude of topics covered in this book are set theory, dynamic optimization, vector spaces, convexity, determinants, risk aversion theory, and probability distributions. The presentational format is essentially that of an extensive list, with copious notes in the margins.The brevity of Economists' Mathematical Manual is simultaneously its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. The strength obviously lies in its diverse scope. Few books could claim to be authoritative over such a wide spectrum of subfields of economics. Yet the lack of exposition can also be perceived as a weakness. This book is extremely useful as a reference, but first-year Ph.D. students should be warned that it should be considered supplemental only. A textbook such as Simon and Blume's Mathematics for Economists or Chiang's Fundamental Methods of Mathematical Economics should be the reference of first recourse for anyone encountering mathematical economics for the first time.

Ever searched for a formula, identity, or condition?

This book intends to be a reference for grad students and researchers in economics, and it is an invaluable one. Previously, I'd always have to look up formulas of all kinds, search various books, fish around for them. I even made my own pages of things I looked up repeatedly and could never remember. Now I have Sydsaeter et al instead.Everything that I had to look up is in here: from solutions to diff eq'ns, the quadratic formula, (basic) topological definitions, and the routine for inverting (more than 2x2) matrices; to Roy's identity, the Slutsky decomposition, and Shepard's lemma; to nec./suff. conditions and various transversality conditions for Hamiltonians. The book is dense (nothing but the formulas, def'ns, and properties: there's no exposition or proofs, though great little notes in the margins) but well organized. It is quite comprehensive.However, it's a bit scant in a couple of areas: the section on econometrics contains nothing meatier than the WLLS and OLS regression; game theory, nothing more than the defn of a Nash eqm and the minimax thm. Get another reference for ecmts and games--these are the only weaknesses I've found in the book. The price is unbelievably great for a book this useful--this is probably the best value I've ever gotten for a book.

A great reference

This book is a great reference for economics graduate students. A definite must buy.