This compact and original exposition of optimal control theory and applications is designed for graduate and advanced undergraduate students in economics. It presents a new elementary yet rigorous proof of the maximum principle and a new way of applying the principle that will enable students to solve any one-dimensional problem routinely. Its unified framework illuminates many famous economic examples and models.
This work also emphasizes the connection between optimal control theory and the classical themes of capital theory. It offers a fresh approach to fundamental questions such as: What is income? How should it be measured? What is its relation to wealth?
The book will be valuable to students who want to formulate and solve dynamic allocation problems. It will also be of interest to any economist who wants to understand results of the latest research on the relationship between comprehensive income accounting and wealth or welfare.
Author(s): Martin L. Weitzman
Edition: illustrated edition
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: 352
City: Cambridge, Mass
Contents
......Page 6
Preface......Page 8
Introduction......Page 12
Part I: Introduction to the Maximum Principle......Page 22
1. The Calculus of Variations and the Stationary Rate of Return on Capital......Page 24
2. The Prototype-Economic Control Problem......Page 41
3. The Maximum Principle in One Dimension......Page 77
4. Applications of the Maximum Principle in One Dimension......Page 122
Part II: Comprehensive Accounting and the Maximum Principle......Page 194
5. Optimal Multisector Growth and Dynamic Competitive Equilibrium......Page 196
6. The Pure Theory of Perfectly Complete National Income Accounting......Page 249
7. The Stochastic Wealth and Income Version of the Maximum Principle......Page 306
References......Page 340
Index......Page 348
