Tag Archives: Modeling

Modeling Religion Through Economics

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In most social sciences, religion has been viewed as a fleeting force in everyday life. In the view of Sociology, religion is a tie to a primitive past, and as people become more educated, religion disappears. In Political Science, religion is seen as a deteriorating force as countries develop into more democratic societies with higher levels of self-expression and belief. Yet both of these disciplines contradict increasing data from the developed world. In fact, in the U.S. alone, 43% of Americans identify as religious, and 33% identify as spiritual. According to a Harvard Economic Study, despite Sociology’s view of religion Continue reading Modeling Religion Through Economics→

Modeling a Risk-Averse Investor in the Stock Market Pt. 3: Trying to Find a Closer Approximation for the net value

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In this blogpost, I will attempt to find an approximation for the series posted in part 2. In part #2, we had the table:   ROI based upon the period we invested in  (1/r)         Sum of each investment   Period 1 ROI  Period 2 ROI Period 3 ROI Period 4 ROI Period J   *SPECIAL CASE* $1/1 $1/1 $1/1 $1/1 + … 1+1+1+1 + …  = $J Investment #1 $1/2 $1/4 $1/8 $1/16 + … ½ + ¼ + 1/8 + 1/16 + … = $2.00 Investment #2 $1/3 $1/9 $1/27 $1/81   + … $1/3 Continue reading Modeling a Risk-Averse Investor in the Stock Market Pt. 3: Trying to Find a Closer Approximation for the net value→

Modeling a Risk-Averse Investor in the Stock Market Pt. 2:

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*This is just a continuation of the first blogpost titled “Modeling a Risk-Averse Investor in the Stock Market Pt. 2”. * Finding an Upper Bound for our Heuristic: To approximate the upper bound, let’s take J –> ∞ and not include the investment# 1 case as it is a special case then we have: Above, we shifted the index of r by 1. It now has to have an initial value of r = 2 insuring the first-rate equals ½. We can make another table to intuitively understand what this represents:   ROI based upon the period we invested in Continue reading Modeling a Risk-Averse Investor in the Stock Market Pt. 2:→

Modeling a Risk-Averse Investor in the Stock Market Pt. 1:

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Suppose someone wants to invest in the stock market, how would you approach modeling an individual investing in this asset class? The particular asset class at hand here is stocks. We will make intuitive assumptions about the stock market and how a risk-averse individual operates in the stock market. Then, we will try to transform said assumptions to make a simple heuristic. This heuristic will then generate a numerical value which we will describe in terms being between an upper and lower boundary. Let’s make the assumptions Creating the Assumptions: ROI on stocks to diminish overtime due to increasing market Continue reading Modeling a Risk-Averse Investor in the Stock Market Pt. 1:→

Why Tacoma shuts down when it snows: A network optimization problem

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(Picture from UPS Facebook Page) This storm seems to spark a lot of emotion. While watching Tacoma residents and California transplants loot Safeway for canned beans and Rainier, Minnesotans and Chicagoans laugh and jeer about how they walked to school in five feet of snow every winter without a jacket. Okay, maybe not quite so extreme, but how would I know – I haven’t left North Tacoma in five days because I, too, am a California transplant. This past week has made glaringly clear the difference in protocols and design between cities that brace for snow vigilantly every winter, and Continue reading Why Tacoma shuts down when it snows: A network optimization problem→