Business cycle theory has been one of the fastest growing fields in modern nonlinear economic dynamics. The book is centered around models of multiplier-accelerator type, emerging from Samuelson's seminal work, later developed into nonlinear formats by Hicks and Goodwin. These models left open ends, as the tools then available did not permit more systematic analysis. The present situation is different, due to the emergence of new methods also focusing global analysis. The focus on classical, causal or recursive models implies a deviation from current main stream business cycle theory, based on "rational expectations," which in view of the possibility of mathematical chaos becomes untenable. This book is a rejoinder to Puu and Sushko, Oligopoly Dynamics - Models and Tools, (Springer 2002).

The essays in this special volume survey some of the most recent advances in the global analysis of dynamic models for economics, finance and the social sciences. They deal in particular with a range of topics from mathematical methods as well as numerous applications including recent developments on asset pricing, heterogeneous beliefs, global bifurcations in complementarity games, international subsidy games and issues in economic geography. A number of stochastic dynamic models are also analysed. The book is a collection of essays in honour of the 60th birthday of Laura Gardini.

The investigation of dynamics of piecewise-smooth maps is both intriguing from the mathematical point of view and important for applications in various fields, ranging from mechanical and electrical engineering up to financial markets. In this book, we review the attracting and repelling invariant sets of continuous and discontinuous one-dimensional piecewise-smooth maps. We describe the bifurcations occurring in these maps (border collision and degenerate bifurcations, as well as homoclinic bifurcations and the related transformations of chaotic attractors) and survey the basic scenarios and structures involving these bifurcations. In particular, the bifurcation structures in the skew tent map and its application as a border collision normal form are discussed. We describe the period adding and incrementing bifurcation structures in the domain of regular dynamics of a discontinuous piecewise-linear map, and the related bandcount adding and incrementing structures in the domain of robust chaos. Also, we explain how these structures originate from particular codimension-two bifurcation points which act as organizing centers. In addition, we present the map replacement technique which provides a powerful tool for the description of bifurcation structures in piecewise-linear and other form of invariant maps to a much further extent than the other approaches.

The essays in this special volume survey some of the most recent advances in the global analysis of dynamic models for economics, finance and the social sciences. They deal in particular with a range of topics from mathematical methods as well as numerous applications including recent developments on asset pricing, heterogeneous beliefs, global bifurcations in complementarity games, international subsidy games and issues in economic geography. A number of stochastic dynamic models are also analysed. The book is a collection of essays in honour of the 60th birthday of Laura Gardini.

This research was aimed at broadening the dominant public discourse on trafficking in Ukraine. It was focused on two issues: firstly, on introducing the cultural dimension of trafficking, which has been emphasized but not sufficiently studied in the existing literature and, secondly, on problematizing the binary approach taken in the public discourse in Ukraine of consensual migration vs. non consensual trafficking. For this purpose the interviews conducted by the anti-trafficking NGO La Strada with 23 trafficked women upon their arrival have been analyzed. The content analysis, used as a main tool of research, has shown that first, apart from economic factors that shaped these interviewed womens decision to leave Ukraine there was also a cultural dimension that included legacy of socialist ideology, the post-1991 transitional period with import of western glamour, psychological climate in the family, etc. Second, the analysis of the interviews has shown that in all cases 23 trafficked women did give their express consent to traffickers either verbally or in a written form and thus it has shown that trafficking could be a voluntary act.