This paper outlines the beginnings of a general theory of critical events. Four types are defined. Two are micro-events each affecting a small number of people and are shown to arise in everyday life. Two are macro-events that affect large numbers of people and are related to ‘shocks’ in...

Students are very interested in lecture examples and class exercises involving data connected to the maiden voyage and the sinking of the liner Titanic. Information on the passengers and their fate can be used to explore relationships between various tests for differences in survival rates...

New results in the asymptotic theory of Markov processes are applied to analysis of the long-run behaviour exhibited by optimal growth models with unbounded productivity shock. The techniques developed here are geometrically intuitive, and are shown to imply global stability for a popular model...