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Web End = J Econ (2015) 116:271274
DOI 10.1007/s00712-015-0453-5
BOOK REVIEW
Published online: 20 August 2015 Springer-Verlag Wien 2015
The book under consideration is a graduate level macro text, with a certain emphasis on the mathematical methods of modern macroeconomic theory. The author, Jianjun Miao, is a well-known researcher in macro theory and the text, as he writes at the beginning of the book, developed from his lecture notes for a course on economic dynamics. The book is structured into four parts, where the rst two are focussed on mathematical methods, while the last two are oriented towards economic content, covering large parts of a typical rst-year macroeconomic graduate level course. I will rst describe the content of the chapters in detail and then class the book in the graduate macro textbook literature.
Before I start a word concerning the mathematical prerequisites: although the author claims in the preface that the book is self-contained in the sense that nothing beyond the undergraduate analysis, linear algebra and probability theory is required (everything beyond this is contained in a short mathematical appendix), my experience would suggest that is highly unlikely (I am even tempted to say impossible) that just from reading the denitions in the appendix a student understands concepts like a topological vector space or the weak* topology. Thus, for all full understanding of the mathematical concepts employed in parts of the book, a, for the typical standards of graduate economics students, strong preparation in mathematics is necessary. In particular, all probabilistic aspects are treated in a measure theoretic framework, so that at least some knowledge and mathematical maturity in basic measure theory is in my view strongly recommended. However, many parts of later, more content oriented chapters, can be read with less mathematical knowledge.
B Martin Barbie
1 CMR, University of Cologne, Albertus-Magnus-Platz, 50923 Cologne, Germany
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Web End = Miao, Jianjun: Economic dynamics in discrete time
736 pp. The MIT Press, Cambridge and London, 2014. Hardcover, 48.95
Martin Barbie1
123
272 M. Barbie
The rst two chapters introduce to deterministic and stochastic difference equations,...