MathEcon CD-ROM

The text, Mathematics for Economics and Business: An Interactive Introduction, is supported by the MathEcon CD-ROM using the award-winning WinEcon software. The MathEcon CD-ROM includes the WinEcon course Mathematics for Economics and Business, adapted to mirror the book, with revised titling and introductions with page referencing to align the software to the text plus additional resources.

The interactive MathEcon screens help you to understand more about many of the topics, both in mathematics and in economics. Other resources on the CD-ROM include interactive quizzes that run in a Web browser and plenty of additional practice problems for each chapter in the form of Acrobat documents that you can print out. There are also Excel files to accompany the Excel sections of the book and PowerPoint slides that outline the methods, for use by both lecturers and students.

MathEcon comprises selected screens on topics in mathematics and in economics from the award-winning WinEcon computer package, which is web-enabled to allow you to access the program at specific topic pages from your university's course notes using hyperlinks to MathEcon. N.B. If your institution is using links to WinEcon 7.1 you will need to upgrade your MathEcon software to WinEcon 7.1 (see Upgrade MathEcon)

The WinEcon software was developed over a period of three years by a consortium of eight UK universities under the UK higher education funding councils’ Teaching and Learning Technology Programme. It is designed to offer a student-centred approach to learning economics and associated quantitative techniques.

The MathEcon chapters correspond to those in the book, and each section has an appropriate introduction. If you are using the software separately, the Introduction screens provide a guide to each section. (A list of the MathEcon screens is given, together with the relevant WinEcon screen numbers, for those students using the WinEcon courseware, and the corresponding book section numbers.)

The courseware offers an interactive and dynamic explanation of many topics, both in mathematics and in economics. Practice problems screens have an easy-to-use answer input mechanism where you get immediate feedback on whether your answer is correct. A calculator is available to help with calculations, and a Help mechanism is provided. Once you have installed MathEcon following the instructions below, the Instructions tab (or Using MathEcon tab in older versions) shows you what the different screen buttons do.

For individual use, the MathEcon interactive course is available on the CD-ROM supplied with the book or as part of the Student Pack supplied by download for use on a Windows PC. The additional MathEcon Resources are only available for individual use on the CD-ROM supplied with the book. If you do not have access to a suitable PC, you may be able to access the screens over a network if your university or college has a WinEcon site licence which includes MathEcon. MathEcon would appear on the WinEcon Start up screen as a course entitled Mathematics for Economics and Business. If the networked version of WinEcon you are using does not show this course, ask your course administrator to contact the WinEcon Consortium about an appropriate upgrade at enquiries@winecon.com   for further details).

What's included on the CD-ROM?

WinEcon course, Mathematics for Economics and Business

1. Functions in Economics 2. Equations in Economics 3. Macroeconomic Models 4. Changes Rates Finance and Series 5. Differentiation in Economics 6. Maximum and Minimum Values 7. Further Rules of Differentiation 8. Partial Differentiation in Economics 9. Constrained Maxima and Minima 10. Integration in Economics 11. Linear Programming 12. Matrices in Economics

WinEcon topics cover chapters 1 -10 and can be accessed from the MathEcon Resources contents page supplied on the CD-ROM or from the Courses page of the WinEcon software.

MathEcon Resources

PowerPoint slides for each chapter are included.

Each set of PowerPoint slides includes objectives, definitions, methods and main results. The slides may be printed as handouts giving a set of key points plus you can alter the slides and add your own notes to them if you wish. When used in conjuction with the textbook, Mathematics for Economics and Business, all the material contained in Remember boxes in the text is included on the slides.

Excel files or workbooks for chapters 1, 2, 4, 11 and 12 are included.

Each Excel file contains several spreadsheets that carry out calculations as described in the text book, Mathematics for Economics and Business, so you can see the formulae used. Some sheets are designed to let you investigate the impact of changing parameters in a model. The matrix sheets can be used to generate more examples for hand calculation practice, together with the answers.

Acrobat sheets, in a printable format, covering topics in each chapter, comprise additional practice problems, with answers on the last page of each problem set.

Interactive quizzes, designed for on screen answering, are available for most chapters in a printable format so completed sheets may be kept as a record of work done.