Plenary Lecture

System-theoretic Foundations of the Theory
of Economic Policy

Professor Reinhard Neck
Department of Economics
Klagenfurt University
Klagenfurt, Austria
E-mail: Reinhard.Neck@uni-klu.ac.at

Abstract: In this paper, we formulate a dynamic theory of economic policy using concepts and axioms of mathematical system theory. First, the notion of a dynamic economic system is characterized axiomatically. Then the basic problem of the theory of economic policy as introduced by Tinbergen and Theil is expressed as a control problem for a dynamic economic system. In this way, a more general framework for the theory of economic policy than available so far can be developed in terms of mathematical system theory. Finally, we discuss some extensions of the framework, in particular to economic policy problems with more than one decision maker.

Brief Biography of the Speaker:
Reinhard Neck was born in 1951 in Vienna, Austria. He received a PhD in statistics and economics from the University of Vienna and the habilitation from the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration. He was assistant professor at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland and the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, Schumpeter Research Fellow at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA, Full Professor of Economics at the Universities of Bielefeld and Osnabruck, Germany, and Austrian Visiting Professor at Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA. Since 1997, he is Full Professor at the Department of Economics, Klagenfurt University, Klagenfurt, Austria, where he is now Head of Department. 2007 and 2008, he was President of the Austrian Economic Association. Neck has edited and co-authored about 30 books and authored or co-authored about 250 scientific journals and collective volumes.