Luca Verginer: Catalogue data in Autumn Semester 2024 |
| Name | Dr. Luca Verginer |
| Address | KOF Institut ETH Zürich, WEV G 213 Weinbergstr. 56/58 8092 Zürich SWITZERLAND |
| lverginer@ethz.ch | |
| URL | http://verginer.eu |
| Department | Management, Technology, and Economics |
| Relationship | Lecturer |
| Number | Title | ECTS | Hours | Lecturers | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 363-0541-00L | Economic Dynamics and Complexity | 3 credits | 3G | F. Schweitzer, L. Verginer | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | What causes economic business cycles? How are limited resources, competition, and cooperation reflected in growth dynamics? To answer such questions, we combine macroeconomic models and methods of nonlinear dynamics. We study the role of bifurcations and control parameters for dynamic stability. Feedback cycles and coupled dynamics are reasons for limited predictability, instability and chaos. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | successful participant of the course is able to: - understand the importance of different modeling approaches - formalize and solve one- and two-dimensional nonlinear models - identify critical conditions for stability and dynamic transitions - analyze macroeconomic models of business cycles, supply and demand - apply formal concepts to model economic growth and competition | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | System theory sees the economy as a complex adaptive system. What does this mean for economic modeling? We focus on two sources of complexity: (a) nonlinear dynamics, which is captured in this course, "Economic Dynamics and Complexity" and (b) collective interactions, which is captured in the course "Agent-Based Modeling of Economic Systems" (in Spring). Our approach to economic dynamics combines insights from different disciplines: macroeconomics studying business cycles and growth, system dynamics rooted general system theory and cybernetics, and nonlinear dynamics using applied mathematics. We start with a comparison of different modeling approaches, to highlight the problems and challenges of system modeling. The subsequent lectures then introduce different one- and two-dimensional nonlinear models with applications in economics, such as models of supply and demand, business cycles, growth and competition. Emphasis is on the formal analysis of these models using methods from applied mathematics and tools for solving coupled differential equations. Weekly self-study tasks are used to apply the concepts introduced in the lectures. We practice how to solve nonlinear models formally and numerically and how to interpret the results. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lecture notes | The lecture slides are provided as handouts - including notes and literature sources - to registered students only. All material is to be found on the Moodle platform. More details during the first lecture. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Prerequisites / Notice | Students should be familar with nonlinear differential equations and should have basic programming skills. All necessary details to solve nonlinear models will be provided in the course. The course will not build on mathematical proofs, optimization, statistics, efficient numerical computation and other specialized skills. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Competencies |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||