Derivatives makes a special effort throughout the text to explain what lies behind the formal mathematics of pricing and hedging. Questions ranging from 'how are forward prices determined?' to 'why does the Black-Scholes formula have the form it does?' are answered throughout the text. The authors use verbal and pictorial expositions, and sometimes simple mathematical models, to explain underlying principles before proceeding to formal analysis. Extensive uses of numerical examples for illustrative purposes are used throughout to supplement the intuitive and formal presentations.

This book introduces students to optimization theory and its use in economics and allied disciplines. The first of its three parts examines the existence of solutions to optimization problems in Rn, and how these solutions may be identified. The second part explores how solutions to optimization problems change with changes in the underlying parameters, and the last part provides an extensive description of the fundamental principles of finite- and infinite-horizon dynamic programming. A preliminary chapter and three appendices are designed to keep the book mathematically self-contained.