From Catastrophe to Chaos: A General Theory of Economic Discontinuities: Volume I: Mathematics, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, and Finance

1 Discontinuity in Economic Theory and Economic Discontinuities -- 1.1 Some Initial Remarks -- 1.2 Discontinuity in the Large and in the Small -- 1.3 The Role of Perspective and the Identification of Discontinuities -- 2 The Mathematics of Discontinuity -- 2.1 General Overview -- 2.2 The Founding Fathers -- 2.3 The Bifurcation of Bifurcation Theory -- 2.4 The Special Path to Fractal Geometry -- 2.5 The Synergetics Synthesis -- 3 Discontinuities in Microeconomic Systems -- 3.1 General Equilibrium Aspects -- 3.2 Discontinuous Competitive Market Dynamics -- 3.3 Discontinuities in Imperfectly Competitive Markets -- 4 Speculative Bubbles and Crashes I: Irrational -- 4.1 Introduction -- 4.2 A Classical View of Irrational Bubbles -- 4.3 Mechanisms of the Speculative Mania -- 4.4 Mechanisms of the Speculative Panic -- 4.5 Varieties of Irrational Bubbles -- 5 Speculative Bubbles and Crashes II: Rational and Semi-Rational -- 5.1 Self-Fulfilling Prophecies as Rational Bubbles -- 5.2 When Are Rational Bubbles Possible? -- 5.3 Price Bubbles in Monetary Economies -- 5.4 Stochastic Rational Bubbles -- 5.5 The Empirical Observability of Bubbles -- 5.6 A Semi-Rational Bubbles Synthesis -- 6 Catastrophe Theory in Macroeconomics -- 6.1 Nonlinear Investment and Business Cycles -- 6.2 Hysteresis of Stagflation -- 7 Chaos Theory and Macroeconomics -- 7.1 Introduction -- 7.2 Sunspots and Regular Cycles in Overlapping Generations Models -- 7.3 Chaotic Cycles in Overlapping Generations Models -- 7.4 Variations on a Theme -- 7.5 Does It Really Exist? -- 7.6 Multiplicity, Indeterminacy, and Worse -- 8 Discontinuity and Capital Theory -- 8.1 The Capital Theory Controversies -- 8.2 Technique Clusters, Discontinuous Technology, and Steady-State Comparisons -- 8.3 But Continuity Does Not Guarantee "No Paradox" -- 8.4 On the Other Hand Paradox Can Cause Discontinuity -- 8.5 Schumpeterian Discontinuities and "Historical Reswitching" -- 9 Discontinuous Evolution of Urban Historical Forms -- 9.1 Introduction -- 9.2 Agglomeration and the Formation and Sudden Growth of Cities -- 9.3 Long Distance Trade and Instability -- 9.4 A Possible Synthesis: The Role of Technological Change -- 10 Discontinuities in Intraurban Systems -- 10.1 Some General Remarks -- 10.2 The Role of Transportation in Urban Structural Bifurcations -- 10.3 An Ecological View -- 10.4 Static and Dynamic Boundary Discontinuities -- 11 Morphogenesis of Regional Systems -- 11.1 The Continuous Flow Model -- 11.2 Evolution of Urban and Regional Systems -- 11.3 Self-Organizing Regional Morphogenesis -- 12 Perspectives on Economic and Ecologic Evolution -- 12.1 Historical Perspectives -- 12.2 Continuous vs Discontinuous Theories of Evolution -- 12.3 Hypercyclic Morphogenesis of Higher Level Structures -- 13 Ecosystems and Economics -- 13.1 Nonlinear Bionomic Dynamics -- 13.2 The Bioeconomics Synthesis -- 14 The Limits to Growth and Global Catastrophe Revisited -- 14.1 Neo-Malthusian Collapse Models -- 14.2 Renewable versus Non-Renewable Resources -- 14.3 Managing Potential Catastrophe -- 14.4 The Entropy Argument -- 15 Instability and Volatility of Foreign Exchange Rates -- 15.1 Introduction -- 15.2 The Standard Foreign Exchange Rate Model -- 15.3 Forecasting Failures of the Standard Model -- 15.4 Alternative Explanations of the Forecasting Failures -- 15.5 Collapsing Exchange Rate Regimes -- 16 The Discontinuous World Economy -- 16.1 Global Dualism and International Immiserization -- 16.2 The General Tendency of the World System -- 17 Summary and Conclusions: Leaping Across the Abyss -- 17.1 Is Economic Discontinuity a Good Thing? -- 17.2 A Few Questions About Our Approach -- 17.3 A Final Synthesis -- References.