A.H.G. Rinnooy Kan – författare

This book is the result of a doctoral dissertation written under the super- vision of professor dr. G. de Leve of the University of Amsterdam. I am very grateful to him for suggesting the subject and for his guidance and support during the preparation. Professor dr. ir. J. S. Folkers has carefully read various drafts of the manuscript; I would like to thank him for his many helpful comments and suggestions. I have also greatly benefited from the advice of Gene Lawler, who spent the summer of 1975 in Amsterdam at the invitation of the Stichting Mathematisch Centrum. A quick glance at the bibliography already indicates how much lowe to the extensive cooperation with Jan Karel Lenstra. Many of the results in this book are the outcome of our joint research. I am similarly grateful to Ben Lageweg, who actively participated in many projects and who was in charge of all computational experiments. The Graduate School of Management in Delft provided a stimulating professional environment. In particular I want to acknowledge the inspiring advice of David Bree and the useful contributions by Erik de Leede, Hans Geilenkirchen, Jaap Galjaard and Jan Knipscheer.I would like to thank Peter Brucker, Robbert Peters, K. Boskma, Michael Florian and Graham McMahon for their valuable written reactions. I am also grateful to Hendrik Lenstra II and Peter van Emde Boas for various illuminating conversations and to Bernard Dorhout for his kind cooperation.

This book contains the Proceedings of a symposium that was held in Rotterdam from 12 to 15 January 1982 to celebrate the 25-th anniversary of the Econometric Institute of the Erasmus University. The subject of the symposium, developments in econometrics and related fields, was particularly appropriate for the occasion. In 25 years the research carried out at the Econometric Institute developed from the original seminal work in econometrics, carried out under the supervision of the first director H. Theil, to embrace related areas such as mathematical economics, operations research, systems theory and other branches of mathematics, statistics and probability theory. To review the state of the art in these areas, thirteen leading experts were invited to deliver a lecture at the symposium; their contributions form .the backbone of this book. Together, they illustrate the wide range and scope of the current scientific activity in these fields. The thirteen authoritative surveys should be of great value to researchers and students alike, who want to become acquainted with recent ideas, current trends and future developments in their chosen fields of interest. Each contribution is preceded by an introduction to the author and his work and followed by a summary of the discussion that followed the lecture. A special chapter is devoted to the history of the Econometric Institute.