Conservation Laws and Symmetry: Applications to Economics and Finance / Edition 1

by Ryuzo Sato, Rama V. Ramachandran

Overview

Modem geometric methods combine the intuitiveness of spatial visualization with the rigor of analytical derivation. Classical analysis is shown to provide a foundation for the study of geometry while geometrical ideas lead to analytical concepts of intrinsic beauty. Arching over many subdisciplines of mathematics and branching out in applications to every quantitative science, these methods are, notes the Russian mathematician A.T. Fomenko, in tune with the Renais­ sance traditions. Economists and finance theorists are already familiar with some aspects of this synthetic tradition. Bifurcation and catastrophe theo­ ries have been used to analyze the instability of economic models. Differential topology provided useful techniques for deriving results in general equilibrium analysis. But they are less aware of the central role that Felix Klein and Sophus Lie gave to group theory in the study of geometrical systems. Lie went on to show that the special methods used in solving differential equations can be classified through the study of the invariance of these equations under a continuous group of transformations. Mathematicians and physicists later recognized the relation between Lie's work on differential equations and symme­ try and, combining the visions of Hamilton, Lie, Klein and Noether, embarked on a research program whose vitality is attested by the innumerable books and articles written by them as well as by biolo­ gists, chemists and philosophers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789048157860
Publisher:	Springer Netherlands
Publication date:	12/09/2010
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of hardcover 1st ed. 1990
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.24(d)

Table of Contents

1 Symmetry: An Overview of Geometric Methods in Economics.- 2 Law of Conservation of the Capital-Output Ratio in Closed von Neumann Systems.- 3 Two Conservation Laws in Theoretical Economics.- 4 The Invariance Principle and Income-Wealth Conservation Laws.- 5 Conservation Laws Derived via the Application of Helmholtz Conditions.- 6 Conservation Laws in Continuous and Discrete Models.- 7 Choice as Geometry.- 8 Symmetries, Dynamic Equilibria, and the Value Function.- 9 On Estimating Technical Progress and Returns to Scale.- 10 On the Functional Forms of Technical Change Functions.

Editorial Reviews

' This book is recommendable to mathematicians in the field of differential geometry and calculus of variations, who take an interest in economic applications ' Journal of Economic 55:3 1992

From the Publisher