his book grew out of the wish to let students of econometrics get acquainted T with the powerful techniques of computer algebra at an early stage in their curriculum. As no textbook available at the time met our requirements as to content and presentation, we had no other choice than to write our own course material. The try-out on a group of 80 first year students was not without success, and after adding some necessary modifications, the same material was presented to a new group of students of similar size the year after. Some more adjustments were made, and the final result now lies...