Learn to use probability in complex realistic situations with PROBABILITY MODELS FOR ECONOMIC DECISIONS. This introduction to the use of probability models for analyzing risks and economic decisions uses Microsoft Excel spreadsheets for the analytic work. As a result of the emphasis on spreadsheet modeling, you'll also develop sophisticated spreadsheet skills.

An introduction to the use of probability models for analyzing risk and economic decisions, using spreadsheets to represent and simulate uncertainty. This textbook offers an introduction to the use of probability models for analyzing risks and economic decisions. It takes a learn-by-doing approach, teaching the student to use spreadsheets to represent and simulate uncertainty and to analyze the effect of such uncertainty on an economic decision. Students in applied business and economics can more easily grasp difficult analytical methods with Excel spreadsheets. The book covers the basic ideas of probability, how to simulate random variables, and how to compute conditional probabilities via Monte Carlo simulation. The first four chapters use a large collection of probability distributions to simulate a range of problems involving worker efficiency, market entry, oil exploration, repeated investment, and subjective belief elicitation. The book then covers correlation and multivariate normal random variables; conditional expectation; optimization of decision variables, with discussions of the strategic value of information, decision trees, game theory, and adverse selection; risk sharing and finance; dynamic models of growth; dynamic models of arrivals; and model risk. New material in this second edition includes two new chapters on additional dynamic models and model risk; new sections in every chapter; many new end-of-chapter exercises; and coverage of such topics as simulation model workflow, models of probabilistic electoral forecasting, and real options. The book comes equipped with Simtools, an open-source, free software used througout the book, which allows students to conduct Monte Carlo simulations seamlessly in Excel.

Handbook of Probabilistic Models carefully examines the application of advanced probabilistic models in conventional engineering fields. In this comprehensive handbook, practitioners, researchers and scientists will find detailed explanations of technical concepts, applications of the proposed methods, and the respective scientific approaches needed to solve the problem. This book provides an interdisciplinary approach that creates advanced probabilistic models for engineering fields, ranging from conventional fields of mechanical engineering and civil engineering, to electronics, electrical, earth sciences, climate, agriculture, water resource, mathematical sciences and computer sciences. Specific topics covered include minimax probability machine regression, stochastic finite element method, relevance vector machine, logistic regression, Monte Carlo simulations, random matrix, Gaussian process regression, Kalman filter, stochastic optimization, maximum likelihood, Bayesian inference, Bayesian update, kriging, copula-statistical models, and more. Explains the application of advanced probabilistic models encompassing multidisciplinary research Applies probabilistic modeling to emerging areas in engineering Provides an interdisciplinary approach to probabilistic models and their applications, thus solving a wide range of practical problems

Written by renowned experts in the field, this reissue of a textbook has as its unifying theme the role that probability models have had, and continue to have, in scientific and practical applications. It includes many examples, with actual data, of real-world use of probability models, while expositing the mathematical theory of probability at an introductory calculus-based level. Detailed descriptions of the properties and applications of probability models that have successfully modeled real phenomena are given, as well as an explanation of methods for testing goodness of fit of these models. Readers will receive a firm foundation in techniques for deriving distributions of various summaries of data that will prepare them for subsequent studies of statistics, as well as a solid grounding in concepts such as that of conditional probability that will prepare them for more advanced courses in stochastic processes.

This book presents both methodological papers on and examples of applying behavioral predictive models to specific economic problems, with a focus on how to take into account people's behavior when making economic predictions. This is an important issue, since traditional economic models assumed that people make wise economic decisions based on a detailed rational analysis of all the relevant aspects. However, in reality – as Nobel Prize-winning research has shown – people have a limited ability to process information and, as a result, their decisions are not always optimal. Discussing the need for prediction-oriented statistical techniques, since many statistical methods currently used in economics focus more on model fitting and do not always lead to good predictions, the book is a valuable resource for researchers and students interested in the latest results and challenges and for practitioners wanting to learn how to use state-of-the-art techniques.