Neo-Ricardian Theory


Book Description

During the last fifteen years certain very fundamental aspects of economic theory have been very actively debated. The debate has often been called the Cambridge controversy, since the main parti cipants in the debate come from Cambridge, USA and Cambridge, Eng land. In this debate certain important foundations of economic theory have been criticized which are specifically important for understand ing price formation and income distribution. An important starting point has been Sraffa's extensions of Ricardo's theory and one has therefore sometimes called those neo-Ricardians, who have based themselves on Sraffa's work. We shall deal with some important issues that have been debated, and we shall try to describe a rather complete theoretical construction which will be an alternative to neo-classical theory. A special problem relates to the title of the book and classification of authocs to whom we refer. Perhaps post-Keynesian would sometimes be a better label than neo-Ricardian. We have used the latter name for the book due to its large emphasis on Sraffa's work. To understand the main parts of the book only basic algebra and calculus are necessary.




Inflation in Small Countries


Book Description




4th IFAC/IFIP International Conference on Digital Computer Applications to Process Control


Book Description

Digital computers have been used more and more to control different industrial processes during the last decade. As of today, many sy stems are designed to include a process control computer as a vital part. The use of computers has created a need for sophisticated me thods for the operation and supervision of complex industrial proces ses. To summarize the state of the art from the practical as well as from the theoretical point of view, the 4th IFAC/IFIP International Conference on "Digital Computer Applications to Process Control" will be held at Zurich from March 19 to 22, 1974. The first two vo lumes of the proceedings contain the accepted papers submitted to the conference mentioned above. The papers are arranged according to the topics of the conference. A third volume will include the six follow ing survey papers: 1. Digital Control Algorithms Prof. A. P. Sage, Dallas Texas / USA 2. Interface Problems for Process Control Prof. T. J. Williams, Lafayette Indiana / USA 3. Software for Process Computers Dr. J. Gertler, Budapest / Hungary Dr. J. Sedlak, Prague / CSSR 4. Digital Computer Applications in Metallurgical Processes Mr. W. E. Miller, Salem / USA Mr. W. G. Wright, Schenectady / USA 5. Digital Computer Applications in Power Systems Mr. D. Ernst, Erlangen / FRG 6. Digital Computer Applications in Chemical and Oil Industries Dr. H. Amrehn, Marl / FRG We hope, that the publication of these papers from specialists.




Multiple Criteria Problem Solving


Book Description

The objective of this conference was to foster a healthy exchange of ideas and experience in the domain of multiple criteria problem solving. This conference was an outgrowth of an earlier conference I organized with Herve Thiriez at CESA, Jouy-en-Josas, France in 1975 during my stay at the European Institute in Brussels. When I re joined the State University of New York at Buffalo that year, I be gan to search for potential sponsors for this conference. Approxi mately one year later when the prospects began to look promising, I contacted several individuals to act as an informal coordinating committee for the conference. I wanted to avoid biasing the con ference completely to my way of thinking! The members of this committee were Jim Dyer, Peter Fishburn, Ralph Kee. ney, Bernard Roy (Universite de Paris IX Dauphine who was unable to participate in the conference), and Milan Zeleny. Though the committee did not meet, per se, their inputs regarding format, possible participants, number of participants, length of the conference, and so on were of great value to me in planning and organizing the conference. I wish to acknowledge the contributions of this group. We were most fortunate in obtaining the financial support of the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management, Brussels ·(one of the sponsors of the Jouy-en-Josas conference), the Office of Naval Research, and the State University of New York at Buffalo.




Energy, Regional Science and Public Policy


Book Description

For the last three decades, space has become a significant dimension in social science analysis. In many developed countries, economic growth is slowing down, and in some cases restrained, due to environmental considerations, and the real question is the optimum spread of development over space rather than the growth over time. In the developing countries, limited and uneven distribution of population and resources, and the existence of heterogenous groups, highlighted the need of balanced regional development. The energy cl~sis and the realization that energy resources are very limited and unequally distributed have further emphasized its importance. The expected impact and relocation due to energy shortages will have a crucial spatial dimension since manufacturing and service activities dependent on energy are concentrated in a few metropolitan regions connected by transportation, 'communication and cultural factors. Regional environ ment is also dependent on the spatial juxtaposition of activities and energy use. The papers included in this volume address some of these considerations. They were presented in the International Conference on Regional Science, Energy and Environment, held at Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven, Belgium, on May 1975. A second volume titled Environment, Regional Science and Interregional Modeling published also by Springer-Verlag contains research papers related to environment and space. This book does not concern all facets of the energy situation. In fact, contributions on major oil producing countries, U. S. S. R. , East European and developing countries are not represented.




Environment, Regional Science and Interregional Modeling


Book Description

This second volume of proceedings of the International Conference on Regional Science, Energy and Environment (Louvain, May 1975) contains papers related to general and partial equilibrium models of regional and urban development, in which natural and human resources playa dominant role. It need not be stressed that environmental factors and resource management have,to some extent, been neglected in postwar economic research. Unfortunately, a world-wide energy crisis or more local environmental disruptions were necessary to draw the economist's attention on the increasing imbalance between man and environment. The topics treated in this volume reflect the shift in economic research which has taken place since the early seventies. They can be classified roughly into 4 fields. The first field deals with a welfare approach to environmental deterioration. The second area covers models of resource allocation that contain environmental constraints. The third class of problems focuses on the relationship between environment and urban development. Finally, some methodological papers are included that explore new areas in regional and ~nterregional model building. Klaassen opens this volume with a paper on the impact of rising energy prices on the structure of regional development and environment, He analyses the change in size of all potentials and the consequent decrease in the volume of traffic. Besides these short-run influences, a :reallocat{o~ of households and firms may be expected in the long-run.




Some Aspects of the Foundations of General Equilibrium Theory


Book Description

In a wide number of economic problems the equilibrium values of the variables can be regarded as solutions of a parametrized constrained maximization problem. This occurs in static as well as dynamic models; in the latter case the choice variables are often paths in certain function spaces and thus can be regarded as points in infinite dimensional spaces. It is sometimes possible to determine qualitative properties of the solutions with respect to changes in the parameters of the model. The study of such properties is often called comparative statics; [15], [2], and [10]. Certain comparative static properties of the maxima have proven to be of particular importance for economic theory, since the works of Slutsky, Hicks, and Samuelson [15]: they have been for- lated in terms of synunetry and negative semidefiniteness of a matrix, called the Slutsky-Hicks-Samuelson matrix. A discussion of this matrix and its applications is given in Section 1. The study of these properties in economic theory, however, has so far been restricted to static models where the choice variable and the parameters are elements in Euclidean spaces, and where there is only one constraint.