The topic with the student asking for advice for his speech influenced me to make this thread. I have an extra credit assignment in my discrete mathematics class due at the end of the semester. What’s great about it is that it has no real guidelines and can be on anything discrete related. So, I wanted to do an Austrian-incorporated paper. I’m just basically looking for ideas on what to write about. How can I embody Austrian economics in discrete math? I suppose I could even talk about Keynesianism and write about what’s wrong with the Keynesian cross, IS-LM and the Orthodox Keynesian Family of Models. Perhaps even debunking the multiplier myth.
How did it go? I would like to read it if I may.
I would either go with something in graph theory or game theory (both well within the scope of discrete math, although perhaps not what was covered in your class - but if it’s for extra credit I doubt the prof will care).
In graph theory, you could perhaps examine the diffusion of monetary injections in the economy - i.e., how inflation spreads from the first recipients of the money to, finally, everyday consumers as prices are rising, maybe somehow proving a general principle relating to how prices will always tend to rise before salaries.
In game theory there are many possibilities, including economic concepts of equilibrium, game theoretic results about whether PDAs would be more incentivized toward war or cooperation in AnCap, arbitration in anarchy, and especially anything having to do with Nash equilibria. Also relevant may be that the Prisoner’s dilemma, in which each prisoner acting out of his own self-interest results in worse consequences for both prisoners, may represent the average person’s reasoning for not believing in Adam Smith’s claim that the profit motive is what makes society prosper. Simply showing why the Prisoner’s dilemma does not apply to the real world economy could be really easy and net you at least a few quick extra credit points.
Note that much work has already been done in politics and economics using game theory, and some with graph theory as well.
Hi there, for another example I’ve begun preparing a paper on Economic Calculation utillising discrete mathematics; especially combinatorics as a tool to display the difficulties from a central planning perspective.