Mathematics & Formal Models
Problem Solving and Innovation
Problem solving and innovation can be analyzed as searches over possible actions, designs, or representations
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Mathematics & Formal Models
Public Projects
Public-project models examine collective provision, shared benefits, costs, and contribution incentives
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Pure Coordination Game
A pure coordination game models participants with aligned interests who need to match choices but may have several possible coordinated outcomes
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Random Walks
A random walk is a cumulative sum of random increments
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Random Walks and Wall Street
Random-walk models offer a benchmark in which price changes follow a specified random process
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Random Walk Models
Random-walk models accumulate random steps under explicit rules
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Rational Actor Models
Rational-actor models represent choices using specified preferences, beliefs, and feasible alternatives
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Reading Regression Output
Read regression output by connecting each coefficient to the model's units and specification, interpreting its uncertainty, and checking diagnostics and study design
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Recombination
Recombination models explore how new candidates can arise from arrangements of existing ideas or components
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Replicator Dynamics
Replicator dynamics model how population shares change according to relative fitness
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Rule Based Models
Rule-based models specify how states or agents change under conditional update rules
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Schelling's Segregation Model
Schelling's segregation models demonstrate that local preferences and relocation interactions can produce substantial aggregate separation without agents explicitly requesting the final pattern
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Seven Ways To Cooperation
Cooperation can be supported by mechanisms including repeated interaction, information about conduct, institutional rules, and structured social interaction
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Six Sigma
Six Sigma is a structured process-improvement approach commonly using Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control
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Skill and Luck
Skill-and-luck models examine how persistent capability and variable circumstances contribute to outcomes
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Solow Growth Model
The Solow model explains capital accumulation and convergence under diminishing returns, saving, depreciation, population growth, and exogenous productivity assumptions
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Sources of Randomness
Unpredictability can reflect event variability, sampling, measurement limits, incomplete models, changing conditions, or sensitive deterministic dynamics
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Spatial Choice Models-Model Thinking
Spatial choice models represent alternatives and preferences using positions and a defined notion of distance
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Teams and Problem Solving
Complementary problem-solving approaches can help a team escape shared local obstacles
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The Big Coefficient vs The New Reality
The contrast distinguishes improving within an existing model from considering changes that alter its variables, relationships, or feasible options
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The Identification Problem - The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart
Self-sorting complicates the attribution of group outcomes because selection, group influence, and shared circumstances can produce similar observed differences
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The Logic of Network Formation
Network-formation models connect link creation and removal rules with resulting patterns
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The Many Model Thinker
Many-model thinking compares relevant representations and mechanisms to expose assumptions, disagreements, and omissions
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The Organization of Cities
Urban-organization models examine how location, transport, economic activity, institutions, and interaction shape cities
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The Replicator Equation
The replicator equation models rates of change in population shares through relative fitness: dxᵢ/dt = xᵢ(fᵢ − f̄), where f̄ is the population-weighted mean fitness
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The Standing Ovation Model
The standing-ovation problem examines how private assessments and observation of others can combine to produce collective responses
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The Structure of Networks
Network topology summarizes connection patterns through measures such as degree, clustering, paths, and communities
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Thinking Electrons Modeling People
Thinking Electrons highlights the difficulty of modeling purposeful, heterogeneous people who have beliefs, goals, and the capacity to adapt
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Time to Convergence and Optimality
Time, convergence, and optimality are distinct features of a decision procedure
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Tipping Point
Tipping-point thinking examines whether a small change can substantially alter a process through feedback, thresholds, or changing expectations
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Tipping Points (Mathematical)
Mathematical tipping models specify conditions under which a small change substantially alters a system's future behavior
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Urn Models
Urn models represent sampling through explicit initial contents and replacement or reinforcement rules
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Value of Information
Value of information measures expected improvement from choosing after additional information within a specified decision model
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Variation or Six Sigma
Variation management distinguishes variability that impairs a requirement from deliberate variation that supports learning
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WIll China Continue to Grow
The China growth question is a case for applying and comparing economic models
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What Is Culture And Why Do We Care
Culture includes socially learned practices, knowledge, norms, and meanings that shape and are shaped by interaction
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When Does Behavior Matter
Behavior matters to the extent that changing plausible decision rules changes the specified system outcome under its institutions and constraints
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Why Do Some Countries Not Grow
Explaining slow growth or persistent poverty requires a defined outcome and evidence about relevant constraints and mechanisms
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Equivalence
Different representations are equivalent only with respect to a specified property and domain, such as equal values, the same solution set, or matching observable behavior
Quantitative ModelsMathematics & Statistics
Bayesian Updating
Bayesian updating revises probabilities by combining priors with likelihoods for observed evidence and normalizing across hypotheses
Quantitative ModelsMathematics & Statistics
Bayes’ Theorem
Bayes' theorem states P(H|E) = P(E|H)P(H)/P(E) when P(E) is positive
Quantitative ModelsMathematics & Statistics
Bell Curve/Normal Distribution
The normal distribution is a symmetric bell-shaped continuous distribution specified by a mean and standard deviation
Quantitative ModelsMathematics & Statistics
Benford's Law
Benford's law gives first significant digit probabilities log₁₀(1 + 1/d)
Quantitative ModelsMathematics & Statistics
Brier Score
The binary Brier score is the mean squared difference between forecast probabilities and zero-or-one outcomes
Quantitative ModelsMathematics & Statistics
Calibration (Probabilistic)
Probabilistic calibration is consistency between forecast probabilities and observed frequencies over a relevant set of resolved events
Quantitative ModelsMathematics & Statistics
Compounding
Compounding applies each period's proportional change to the accumulated base
Quantitative ModelsMathematics & Statistics
Confidence Interval
A confidence interval is produced by a procedure with a specified repeated-sampling coverage rate under its assumptions
Quantitative ModelsMathematics & Statistics
Correlation Does Not Imply Causation
Correlation alone does not identify a causal effect
Quantitative ModelsPage 10 of 50 · 433–480 of 2,375 models