Mathematics 1 for Economics

Winter semester 2023/24

Working with mathematical models requires two skills: First one needs to be familiar with techniques for handling terms and formulæ and with methods for solving particular problems like finding extrema of a given function. Learning and applying such procedures is already part of the course Foundations of Economics (Mathematical Methods. The second skill is the investigation of structural properties of a given model. One has to find conclusions that can be drawn from one's model and find convincing arguments for these.

In this course our emphasis is on mathematical reasoning. New notions are declared in definitions. Conclusions are stated in theorems. Proofs demonstrate that our claims hold in all cases where the given conditions are satisfied. Counterexamples may show that a conjecture is wrong. Examples help us to deal with often abstract concepts.

We learn these ideas in the framework of linear algebra. We do this for several reasons. It provides the mathematics for all linear models which are important in, e.g., econometric studies. Moreover, in mathematics non-linear functions are often replaced by appropriate linear ones in order to make a problem tractable. The concepts in linear algebra are abstract but we often can use examples from our three dimensional world to illustrate these. Moreover, few definitions give way to rich structure with comparatively short proofs.

In summary, the course covers the following topics:

Learning Materials

Bibliography

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Last change: Wed Aug 2, 2023 by josef leydold

[Miran, `Im Bergwerk I']