Re: Santa Fe-Krugman-Arthur

[Rosser Jr, John Barkley]

Doug,
     Actually, when I was first asked, one of the things 
that I mentioned is something that Michael Perelman also 
mentioned, namely highlighting how fragile a system can be 
that does not look fragile at all on the surface, the 
famous "butterfly effect" or "sensitive dependence on 
initial conditions."  At the right time, place, point, a 
small change in a system (being very loosey-goosey here) 
can lead to very large changes in how the sytem behaves, 
possibly even the complete upending and transformation of 
the system.  I find that of considerable usefulness, and I 
would think that as an analyst of financial markets who has 
gone from worrying about Wordsworth to worrying about 
investors in invertible floaters, you would too, :-).
Barkley Rosser
On Thu, 5 Feb 1998 13:42:16 -0500 Doug Henwood 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Rosser Jr, John Barkley wrote:
> 
> >Focusing purely on
> >economics and a notch or two up mathematically, but
> >probably still more accessible than anything else is my
> >1991 book, _From Catastrophe to Chaos: A General Theory of
> >Economic Discontinuities_, Boston: Kluwer, not available in
> >paperback.  I am currently working on the second edition of
> >it.  There are quite a few other books on chaos theory in
> >economics out there, many published by Springer Verlag, but
> >they are generally more mathematically difficult and not
> >very comprehensive. A recent fairly comprehensive
> >collection of articles, not designed to be accessible
> >although some are, is _Chaos Theory in Economics: Methods,
> >Models and Evidence_, edited by W. Davis Dechert, Edward
> >Elgar, 1996.
> 
> Could you tell us, in equation-unfriendly ASCII, just what additional
> insight into economics chaos theory provides? Or is it just some neat
> mathematical game, like so much econometrics, with little power to clarify
> real human life?
> 
> Doug
> 
> 
> 

-- 
Rosser Jr, John Barkley
[EMAIL PROTECTED]