Events

Mathematical Control Theory and Applications in Economics

Electrical and Computer Engineering
Lecture / Panel
 
For NYU Community

Speaker: Professor Iasson Karafyllis

Faculty Host: Professor Zhong-Ping Jiang

Abstract

Novel results in nonlinear Mathematical Control Theory have a deep impact in various sciences. Particularly, the derivation of sufficient conditions for robust stability properties for uncertain systems can be used in many economic models. Economic models are essentially uncertain models due to the large number of rules and parameters that cannot be determined a priori. Two applications are studied and illustrate the effectiveness of the utilization of modern nonlinear control theory to Economics. The first application is the solution of the price stabilization problem for a certain commodity by using buffer stocks. It is shown that the "keep-supply-at-equilibrium" policy is a globally stabilizing feedback. The second application is the derivation of sufficient conditions for the robust global asymptotic stability of Nash equilibria for uncertain strategic games. The results are specified to the Cournot oligopoly game. Finally, it is shown how recent results in Small-Gain theory can be used for the simultaneous stabilization of the prices of commodities by means of appropriate buffer stock policies.

About the Speaker

Iasson Karafyllis was born in Athens, Greece in 1971. He received the BS degree in chemical engineering from NTUA (National Technical University of Athens) in 1994; the MSc degree in Process Integration from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology in 1995; the MSc degree in Mathematics from the University of Minnesota in 1997; and the PhD degree in Mathematics from NTUA in 2003. He has been a lecturer in the Dept. of Economics at the University of Athens. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Environmental Engineering at the Technical University of Crete. He has been elected to be Professor of Mathematics in the Dept. of Mathematics at NTUA. His research interests include mathematical control theory, stability theory and feedback stabilization problems for discrete-time and continuous-time deterministic systems. Moreover, he is interested in applications of mathematical control theory to Game Theory, Numerical Analysis and Mathematical Biology. He is the author of many papers on the previous topics.