J. Barkley Rosser – författare

From Catastrophe to Chaos: A General Theory of Economic Discontinuities presents and unusual perspective on economics and economic analysis. Current economic theory largely depends upon assuming that the world is fundamentally continuous. However, an increasing amount of economic research has been done using approaches that allow for discontinuities such as catastrophe theory, chaos theory, synergetics, and fractal geometry. The spread of such approaches across a variety of disciplines of thought has constituted a virtual intellectual revolution in recent years. This book reviews the applications of these approaches in various subdisciplines of economics and draws upon past economic thinkers to develop an integrated view of economics as a whole from the perspective of inherent discontinuity.

"Now, however, weface an Age of Discontinuity in world economy and tech- nology. We might succeed in making it an age of great economic growth as weil. But the one thing that is certain so far is that it will be a period of change-in technology and in economic policy, in industry structures and in economic theo- ry, in the knowledge needed to govern and manage, and in economic issues. While we have been busy finishing the great nineteenth-century economic ed- ijice, the foundations have shifted beneath our feet." Peter F. Drucker, 1968 The A~e Qf DiscQntinuity, p. 10 This project has had a lQng gestatiQn period, probably ultimately dating to a YQuthful QbsessiQn with watershed divides and bQundaries. My awareness Qf the problem Qf discQntinuity in eCQnQmics dates tQ my first enCQunter with the capi- tal theQry paradQxes in the late 1960s, the fruits Qf which can be seen in Chapter 8 Qf this book. This awareness led tQ a frostratiQn Qver the apparent lack Qf a mathematics Qf discQntinuity, a lack that was in the process of rapidly being QverCQme at that time.

Drawing on the middle chapters from the first edition of J. Barkley Rosser's seminal work, From Catastrophe to Chaos, this book presents an unusual perspective on economics and economic analysis. Current economic theory largely depends upon assuming that the world is fundamentally continuous. However, an increasing amount of economic research has been done using approaches that allow for discontinuities such as catastrophe theory, chaos theory, synergetics, and fractal geometry. The spread of such approaches across a variety of disciplines of thought has constituted a virtual intellectual revolution in recent years. This book reviews the applications of these approaches in various subdisciplines of economics and draws upon past economic thinkers to develop an integrated view of economics as a whole from the perspective of inherent discontinuity.

"Now, however, weface an Age of Discontinuity in world economy and tech- nology. We might succeed in making it an age of great economic growth as weil. But the one thing that is certain so far is that it will be a period of change-in technology and in economic policy, in industry structures and in economic theo- ry, in the knowledge needed to govern and manage, and in economic issues. While we have been busy finishing the great nineteenth-century economic ed- ijice, the foundations have shifted beneath our feet." Peter F. Drucker, 1968 The A~e Qf DiscQntinuity, p. 10 This project has had a lQng gestatiQn period, probably ultimately dating to a YQuthful QbsessiQn with watershed divides and bQundaries. My awareness Qf the problem Qf discQntinuity in eCQnQmics dates tQ my first enCQunter with the capi- tal theQry paradQxes in the late 1960s, the fruits Qf which can be seen in Chapter 8 Qf this book. This awareness led tQ a frostratiQn Qver the apparent lack Qf a mathematics Qf discQntinuity, a lack that was in the process of rapidly being QverCQme at that time.

Drawing on the middle chapters from the first edition of J. Barkley Rosser's seminal work, From Catastrophe to Chaos, this book presents an unusual perspective on economics and economic analysis. Current economic theory largely depends upon assuming that the world is fundamentally continuous. However, an increasing amount of economic research has been done using approaches that allow for discontinuities such as catastrophe theory, chaos theory, synergetics, and fractal geometry. The spread of such approaches across a variety of disciplines of thought has constituted a virtual intellectual revolution in recent years. This book reviews the applications of these approaches in various subdisciplines of economics and draws upon past economic thinkers to develop an integrated view of economics as a whole from the perspective of inherent discontinuity.

From Catastrophe to Chaos: A General Theory of Economic Discontinuities presents and unusual perspective on economics and economic analysis. Current economic theory largely depends upon assuming that the world is fundamentally continuous. However, an increasing amount of economic research has been done using approaches that allow for discontinuities such as catastrophe theory, chaos theory, synergetics, and fractal geometry. The spread of such approaches across a variety of disciplines of thought has constituted a virtual intellectual revolution in recent years. This book reviews the applications of these approaches in various subdisciplines of economics and draws upon past economic thinkers to develop an integrated view of economics as a whole from the perspective of inherent discontinuity.