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This monograph deals with various classes of deterministic continuous time optimal control problems wh ich are defined over unbounded time intervala. For these problems, the performance criterion is described by an improper integral and it is possible that, when evaluated at a given admissible element, this criterion is unbounded. To cope with this divergence new optimality concepts; referred to here as "overtaking", "weakly overtaking", "agreeable plans", etc. ; have been proposed. The motivation for studying these problems arisee primarily from the economic and biological aciences where models of this nature arise quite naturally since no natural bound can be placed on the time horizon whe...
These Proceedings report the scientific results of an International Workshop on Large-Scale Modelling and Interactive Decision Analysis organized Jointly by the System and Decision Sciences Program of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA, located in Laxenburg, Austria), and the Institute for Informatics of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR (located in Berlin, GDR). The Workshop was held at a historically well-known place - the Wartburg Castl- near Eisenach (GDR). (Here Martin Luther translated the Bible into German.) More than fifty scientists representing thirteen countries participated. This Workshop is one of a series of meetings organizE!d by or In collaboration with IIASA about which two of the Lecture Notes In Economics and Mathematical Systems have already reported (Voi. 229 and Vol. 246). This time the aim of the meeting was to discuss methodological and practical problems associated with the modelling of large-scale systems and new approaches In interactive decision analysis based on advanced information processing systems.
The investigation of special topics in systems dynamics -uncertain dynamic processes, viability theory, nonlinear dynamics in models for biomathematics, inverse problems in control systems theory-has become a major issue at the System and Decision Sciences Research Program of the International Insti tute for Applied Systems Analysis. The above topics actually reflect two different perspectives in the investigation of dynamic processes. The first, motivated by control theory, is concerned with the properties of dynamic systems that are stable under vari ations in the systems' parameters. This allows us to specify classes of dynamic systems for which it is possible to construct and control a w...
In the past, technological as well as economic forces dominated the evolution of industrial structures: these factors have been treated extensively in numerous studies. However, another major factor which has begun to have a decisive influ ence on the performance of the chemical industry is technological risk and public and environmental health considerations, in particular those related to toxic and hazardous substances used in industrial production processes. The issues of con trolling process risk, waste streams, and potential environmental consequences of accidental or routine release of hazardous chemicals are rapidly gaining in impor tance vis CI vis narrow economic considerations, and...
Modern welfare economics as it is known today to economists took its final shape with the emergence of the Arrow-Debreu model. The classical conjectures about the beneficient workings of markets together with the converse statement, that optimal (in the sense of Pareto) allocations may be sustained by prices and markets, has laid a firm foundation for further research in welfare economics. But more than that, it has inspired researchers to take up entirely new topics, notably by closer considerations of situations where the assumptions of the original model may seem overly restrictive. One of these new directions has been connected with generalizing the model so that it takes into account th...
"Is the business cycle obsolete?" This often cited title of a book edited by Bronfenbren ner with the implicit affirmation of the question reflected the attitude of mainstream macroeconomics in the Sixties regarding the empirical relevance of cyclic motions of an economy. The successful income policies, theoretically grounded in Keynesian macroec onomics, seemed to have eased or even abolished the fluctuations in West,ern economies which motivated studies of many classical and neoclassical economists for more than 100 years. The reasoning behind the conviction that business cycles would increasingly become irrelevant was rather simple: if an economy fluctuates for whatever reason, then it is...
I. The Topic and the structure of the Proceedings The papers in this book are the proceedings of a conference held at the Economics Department of the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research in March 1985 in New York for which financial support was provided by .the West German Consulate. The topic of the conference was "Competition, Instability, and Nonlinear Cycles." A number of mathematical economists from Italy, West Germany, France, Japan, and the u.s. were invited as participants in this meeting. The conference was preceded by two other conferences in which several of the invited scholars had taken part. One, on "la gravitation des prix," took place in Nanterre, France,in ...
This book has grown out of a desire to explore the possibilities of using optimizing models in transportation planning. This approach has been followed throughout. Models which combine descriptive and optimizing elements are not treated. The gravity model is here studied as the solution to an optimizing model. In spite of this approach, much of the material shoula be of general interest. Algorithms are not discussed. The author has benefited from discussions with many colleagues. M. Florian suggested the term "interacti vi ty". N. F. Stewart and P. Smeds gave many valu able comments on a first draft. M. Beckmann made me think once more about the final chapters. R. Grubbstrem and K. Jornsten ...
An investor who wants to invest a certain amount and to whom a lot of more or less risky alternatives arise would divide this amount among several securities. He makes this portfolio decision because of his expectations with regard to these assets which result from the information available to him. If the investor obtains additional information, then his knowledge would improve and, therefore, the portfolio decision made by him. Accordingly, he will be ready to accept certain costs related to the information procurement. The value of information indicates the maximum tolerable information costs, and its knowledge, therefore, enables - by comparing with the actual information costs - to evalu...
This study is concerned with forecasting time series variables and the impact of the level of aggregation on the efficiency of the forecasts. Since temporally and contemporaneously disaggregated data at various levels have become available for many countries, regions, and variables during the last decades the question which data and procedures to use for prediction has become increasingly important in recent years. This study aims at pointing out some of the problems involved and at pro viding some suggestions how to proceed in particular situations. Many of the results have been circulated as working papers, some have been published as journal articles, and some have been presented at confe...