Chaos and Catastrophe Theories (Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences)

What is chaos? How can it be measured? How are the models estimated? What is catastrophe? How is it modelled? How are the models estimated? These questions are the focus of this volume.

Beginning with an explanation of the differences between deterministic and probabilistic models, Brown then introduces the reader to chaotic dynamics. Other topics covered are finding settings in which chaos can be measured, estimating chaos using nonlinear least squares and specifying catastrophe models. Finally a nonlinear system of equations that models catastrophe using real survey data is estimated.