33507 - Crash Course in Mathematics

Academic Year 2012/2013

  • Docente: Arsen Palestini
  • Language: English
  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in Economics (cod. 8408)

Course contents

First week

Analytic geometry: line, parabola, circle in the cartesian plane.

Trigonometry: trigonometric functions and related properties.

Real functions of one variable: elementary functions, domain, limits, continuity, derivatives, composite and inverse functions, concavity and convexity, graph of a function, Taylor series, de¯nite and inde¯nite integrals.

Second week

Linear algebra: systems of linear equations, vectors and matrices, rank, determinant, linear independence, eigenvalues and eigenvectors.

Real functions of several variables: domain, continuity, partial derivatives, Hessian matrix.

Static optimization: stationary points, maxima and minima, saddle point, optimization problems with equality and inequality constraints.

Readings/Bibliography

1. Blume, Lawrence and Carl Simon, 1994, Mathematics for Economists, Norton.

2. Chiang, Alpha C. and Kevin Weinwright, 2005, Fundamental Methods of Mathematical Economics, McGraw-Hill.

Office hours

See the website of Arsen Palestini