Summary
This paper deals with a general theory of growth and the related growth functions that apply to many systems where growth occurs. Such growth systems appear in forecasting, finance, business, management, marketing, new technology diffusion, innovation diffusion, demography and biology and in several other cases. Firstly, some important growth equations are produced by following simple laws of growth. Secondly, similarities between growth systems and systems in physics are studied. An exploration of growth patterns and growth regulation is following and variational principles are applied so that a general growth model and its Lagrangian are formulated.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
C. Caratheodory, Caluculus of Variations and Partial Differential Equations of the First Order, Chelsea, New York, 1982.
B. Gompertz, On the Nature of the Function Expressing of the Law of Human Mortality, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 36, 513–585 (1825).
H. IIotelling, Differential Equations Subject to Error, and Population Estimates, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 22, 283–314 (1927).
T. Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, Johnson, London, 1798.
C.H. Skiadas, Two Generalized Rational Models for Forecasting Innovation Diffusion, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 27, 39–61 (1985).
P.F. Verhulst, Notice sur la Loi que la Population Suit dans son Accroissement, in, Correspondance Mathematique et Physique, publite par A. Quetelet, Tome 10: 113–121, 1838.
L. Von Bertalanffy, General System Theory, Penguin, London, 1971.
W. Yourgrau and S. Mandelstam, Variational Principles in Dynamics and Quantum Theory, Dover, New York, 1979.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1995 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Skiadas, C.H. (1995). A Lagrangian Approach for the Selection of Growth Functions in Forecasting. In: Janssen, J., Skiadas, C.H., Zopounidis, C. (eds) Advances in Stochastic Modelling and Data Analysis. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0663-6_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0663-6_12
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-4574-4
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-0663-6
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive