Basic Mathematics for Economists

Basic Mathematics for Economists

[...]... A-level mathematics Some of you will be following a mathematics course specifically designed for people without A-level mathematics whilst others will be mixed in with more mathematically experienced students on a general quantitative methods course The book starts from some very basic mathematical principles Most of these you will already have covered for GCSE mathematics (or O-level or CSE for some... set rules for the order in which basic arithmetic operations should be performed, which are explained in Chapter 2 Nowadays, these are programmed into most calculators but not some older basic calculators If you only have an old basic calculator then it cannot help you It is you who must tell the calculator in which order to perform the calculations (The correct answer is 3, by the way.) For another... usually be performed with a calculator, perhaps one of the most common problems you are likely to face is how to express quantities as decimals before setting up a calculation Example 2.23 Express 0.01p as a decimal fraction of £1 Solution 1p = £0.01 Therefore 0.01p = £0.0001 In mathematics a decimal format is often required for a value that is usually specified as a percentage in everyday usage For example,... with others over Asking others for help makes sense if you are absolutely stuck and just cannot understand a topic However, you should make every effort to work through all the problems that you are set before asking your lecturer or fellow students for help When you do ask for help it should be to find out how to tackle a problem Some students who have difficulty with mathematics tend to copy answers... in useless information you will get useless information back – hence the well-known phrase ‘rubbish in, rubbish out’ At a very basic level, consider what happens when you use a pocket calculator to perform some simple operations Get out your pocket calculator and use it to answer the problem 16 − 3 × 4 − 1 = ? What answer did you get? 3? 7? 51? 39? It all depends on which order you perform the calculations... consult your lecturer In some instances the basic analysis of certain economic concepts is explained before the mathematical application of these concepts, but this should not be considered a complete coverage of the topic Practise, practise You will not learn mathematics by reading this book, or any other book for that matter The only way you will learn mathematics is by practising working through... particularly like to thank Alison Johnson at the Centre for International Studies in Economics, SOAS, London, and Ray Lewis at the University of Adelaide, Australia, for their help in checking the answers to the questions I am also indebted to my colleague at Coventry, Keith Redhead, for his advice on the revised chapter on financial mathematics, to Gurpreet Dosanjh for his help in checking the second edition proofs,... many of them because they thought that they were not good enough at mathematics to take it for A-level However, most of them usually manage to complete their first-year mathematics for economics course successfully and go on to achieve an honours degree There is no reason why you should not do likewise if you are prepared to put in the effort © 1993, 2003 Mike Rosser 2 Arithmetic Learning objectives After... and operations on formulae have to be performed using the basic principles for operations on fractions In some cases fractions can give a more accurate answer than a calculator owing to rounding error (see Example 2.15 below) A fraction is written as numerator denominator and is just another way of saying that the numerator is divided by the denominator Thus 120 = 120 ÷ 960 960 Before carrying out... are useful for basic arithmetic operations that take a long time to do manually, such as long division or finding square roots If you only use a basic calculator, care needs to be taken to ensure that individual calculations are done in the correct order so that the fundamental rules of mathematics are satisfied and needless inaccuracies through rounding are avoided However, the level of mathematics . class="bi x0 y0 w0 h0" alt=""