Introduction

In this Introduction, we illustrate the genesis of the theory of chaos as by-product of the study of nonlinear systems in physics and meteorology. Then, we introduce the notion of nonlinearities in economics and the extension of the methods and the analyses devised in hard sciences not only for understanding the dynamics but, also, for predicting and controlling them. After that, we describe the organization of this book that, in the first three parts, has the objective of providing the needed knowledge to anyone who would like to study nonlinear phenomena in economics. The fourth part, instead, shows how the aforementioned methods and analyses can be applied to economics and gives an account of current research on the topic.