Mathcad Industry Examples

 

Mathcad and Economic Debate

 

Mathcad in the analysis of Economic data
 
Associate Professor Steve Keen at the University of Western Sydney has made a major impact on economic debate in recent years. All of his work has been done using Mathcad.
 
You can use Mathcad equations to solve just about any math problem you can think of, symbolically or numerically. By combining equations, text and graphics in a single worksheet, Mathcad makes it easy to keep track of the most complex calculations. This simplifies and streamlines the documentation and publishing of your work.
 
"I use Mathcad in two main ways", Dr Keen explained "for statistical analysis and presentation, and for constructing dynamic models."Dr Keen publishes a monthly newsletter called Debtwatch, which warns of the dangers of excessive private debt. The newsletter is written in Mathcad, and makes use of Mathcad's very flexible programming language to import data from a wide range of statistical sources. Dr Keen then puts Mathcad's graphing capabilities to work to make this information visually compelling.Debtwatch has now become very influential in the Australian economic debate, and Mathcad's power and flexibility has been essential here. No other program could allow so rapid a turnaround from analysis to argument.
 
He also uses Mathcad to model dynamic systems, such as a model of credit money creation that goes well beyond the textbook model of the "money multiplier". Here Mathcad's combination of a natural display of mathematics, and logical as well as numeric programming, has been invaluable."Using Mathcad's programming and symbolic engine, I've been able to enter a matrix that records flows between bank accounts in a way that any accountant would recognise--it's basically double entry book-keeping. Then from this very natural interface I automatically derive a set of differential equations to be simulated using the Odesolve block. The programs that achieve this are almost embarrassingly simple, and yet very powerful."

 

"It's this blend of analytic power and a very natural expression of mathematical logic that makes Mathcad so unbeatable. I expect that I could have done all this in any number of other programs, but the programming would have been far harder to achieve, far more difficult to interpret later, and the presentation of the results would have necessitated exporting to another program to format text, graphs and equations properly. In Mathcad, I can do it all in one place.""I also find that Mathcad's brilliant equation editor makes it possible for me to develop the logic of a mathematical argument in Mathcad faster and more accurately than I ever could on paper, and then almost instantly test the idea out. There's simply no other program like it. If I found myself wrecked on a desert isle--or the computing equivalent, having to choose just one program out of all those I know--then Mathcad would be it."

 

Steve Keen is a long term Hearne customer, publisher of Debtwatch and Debunking Economics, as well as a regular guest on many TV programs.

 

Analysis and graphing performed in Mathcad:

 

Submission to the House of Representatives Economics Committee Inquiry into Home Loan Lending Practices and Processes.
 
Developing a Monetary Model of Financial Instability.