This book contains a selection of the papers presented at the symposium on "Decision processes in Economics" which was held in Modena (Italy) on 9-10 October 1989. It coincided with the annual meeting of the italian group on Game Theory; the group is formed by economists, mathematicians, engineers and social scientists. One of the targets of the Meeting, and therefore of the book, is to create an opportunity for having together papers by scientists with an "optimal control" education and papers by theorists on refinement of equilibrium, on repeted games and other topics. These two modes of working on Games are quite different but we think that a unitary approch to Games can be given and this book is an attempt in this direction. Another important and updated issue which is emphisized in the book is the discussion of computation and efficiency of numerical methods in Games. Stochastic differential games are treated in the papers by Basar, Haurie -and Deissemberg. Basar considers a stochastic model of a conflict situation between the monetary policy maker (go vernment) and the responding agent (private sector). Because of asymmetry in the (stochastic) information available the Nash and the Stackelberg games become non standard stochastic diffe rential games. After the discussion of the conditions leading to a solution he provides a numerical example for the proposed game. Haurie considers a game where the observed state changes according to a stochastic jump process."

This book contains a collection of the most significant contributions to some of R.M. Goodwin's ideas, which were presented on the occasion of the outstanding economist's 73rd birthday celebrations held in Modena on February 24th, 1986. The most important feature of this book is the unique combination of papers by economists, econometricians and mathematicians. Their papers deal with the different aspects of Goodwin's celebrated models. The book is divided into three parts. The first part contains five papers which describe Goodwin's scientific life. The second part is more quantitative and contains extensions and modifications to the nonlinear model of growth cycles. The third part is an economic reflection linked to Goodwin's themes. The book presents a combination of both qualitative and quantitative contributions to Goodwin's pioneering works.