Nonnegative Matrices and Applications

This book presents an integrated treatment of the theory of nonnegative matrices, emphasizing connections with the themes of game theory, combinatorics, inequalities, optimization, and mathematical economics. Some related classes of positive matrices such as positive semidefinite matrices, M-matrices, P-matrices, and distance matrices are also discussed, but the main emphasis is on entrywise nonnegative matrices. The book begins with the basics of the subject, such as the Perron-Frobenius Theorem. Only a minimal background in linear algebra is assumed, although familiarity with linear programming and statistics will be helpful in following some sections. Each of the later chapters is devoted to an area of applications, including doubly stochastic matrices (price fixing, scheduling, and the fair division problem), combinatorial matroids, and economics. These applications have been carefully chosen both for their elegant mathematical content and for their accessibility. The treatment is rigorous and almost all results are proved completely. About half of the material in the book presents standard topics in a novel fashion, the remaining portion reports many new results in matrix theory for the first time in a book form.