Foundations of Economic Analysis [antikvár]

PREFACE TO THE ENLARGED EDITION in this enlarged edition the original text (pp. 1 -439) has been reproduced exactly as it appeared in the first edition of 1947, except that some typographical errors have been corrected. For this edition I have M^ritten three new pieces: an Introduction, Mathematical Appendix C, and the Bibliography. The new Introduction comments on the book's genesis and subsequent developments in analytical economics. Mathematical Appendix C gives in nine sections a sampling of important trends in mathematical economics that are directly related to the concerns of this book. It includes selective summaries of linear and nonlinear programming; the various aspects of duality theory, including stochastic dynamic programming; the testable content of monetary models in which money is put directly into utility functions for the convenience it renders at different prices; reflections on the nature and logic of probabilistic decision making, within the Expected Utility dogma and in more general formulations; the merits and demerits of mean-variance analysis in comparison with general analytical methods of portfolio optimization. In the concluding section of the new Mathematical Appendix, time-phased models of production are analyzed, both in their Sraffa and Leontief mainstream economics versions and in their Karl Marx versions. Finally, the Bibliography contains references to the new Introduction and to Mathematical Appendix C. By concentrating on what is fundamental I have been able to cover much that has concerned economic theorists in recent decades. But to do full justice to these subjects my book would have had to double in size at least. Therefore, I beg readers' indulgence in viewing these broad pen strokes and commend to them the wise caveat that the mathematician George Mackey once invoked in the preface to a book on the mathematics of quantum theory: "If the reader feels a sign should be changed, he is probably right." P.A.S.