This paper reports on the current state of a project to develop a system dynamics (SD) model for urban housing markets in China, aimed at facilitating policy analysis and supporting practical educational tools that might reach large numbers of potential entrepreneurs in China. Although numerous...

The objective of this manuscript is to provide a simple guide to instructors and students on how to solve and simulate a discrete-time specification of the Life-Cycle/Permanent-Income Model of Consumption and Saving (LCPI Model) using only algebra and basic calculus. The solution and simulation...

Teaching Dynamic Macroeconomics at undergraduate courses relies exclusively on intuitive prose and graphics depicting behaviours and steady states of the main markets of the economy. But when the case of forward-looking agents and the macroeconomic implications of their actions are discussed,...

Monotone methods enable comparative static analysis without the restrictive assumptions of the implicit function theorem. Ease of use and flexibility in solving comparative static and game theory problems have made monotone methods popular in the economics literature and in graduate courses, but...

In introductory and even intermediate courses, the cobweb model is the reference dynamic model to justify market equilibrium and to illustrate how market equilibrium can be reached. Nonetheless, the cobweb model has at least two unattractive features: (i) that, in requiring at each time equality...

Dynamic optimization is widely used in financial economics, macroeconomics and resource economics. This is accounting for some tension between the undergraduate and graduate teaching of economics because most undergraduate programs still concentrate on static economic analysis. This paper shows...

Few textbooks in mathematical economics cover optimal timing problems. Those which cover them do it scantly or in a rather clumsy way, making it hard for students to understand and apply the concept of optimal time in new contexts. Discussing the plentiful illustrations of optimal timing...

This paper demonstrates how simple general equilibrium models can be solved with the help of Microsoft Excel. Two different general equilibrium models for tax incidence analysis are used as illustrative examples. The methods presented here are intended to be beneficial to both students and...

We present a simple method of solving first-order linear differential and difference equations with a constant term and a constant coefficient. When solving such equations standard books in mathematical economics resort to a particular integral and a complementary function without further...

In this paper, we analyze a purchase lot-sizing decision that includes transport cost using actual motor carrier freight rates. Lot-sizing models in the literature either estimate motor carrier freight rates with a continuous function or simplify less-than-truckload freight rates unrealistically...