Matemáticas en Economia

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We present a proposal of a Research and Study Course (RSC) which arises from a very common business matter: making a sales forecast of a product set, given the sold amounts of a certain period of time. This RSC has been experimented as a “Mathematical Workshop” with first year students in a Faculty of Economics in Barcelona (Spain). The “a priori” and “a posteriori” analysis of the experimental process allow us making clear some basic components of the university didactic ecology of the RSC, especially those aspects related to the “media and milieu” dialectics. Both the detected restrictions in the implementation of the new didactic contract, as well as the potentials of the generating question will lay the foundations of the design of a new RSC, which will be implemented during the year 2007/08.

This paper presents a mathematical modelling activity experienced with students of first year university level centred on a problem of forecasting sales using onevariable functions. It then focuses on the back and forth movements between the initial system – a time-series of the term sales of a firm – and the different models proposed to make the forecasting. The analysis of these movements, that are at the core of the ‘mathematising step’ of the modelling cycle, shows how the initial empirical system is being enlarged and progressively enriched with new variables and mathematical objects. Thus the development of a modelling activity initiated with a real-situation may soon lead to a process where the mathematising affects both the system and the model. 1. THE MATHEMATISING STEP IN THE MODELLING PROCESS

This paper presents a mathematical modelling activity experienced with students of
first year university level centred on a problem of forecasting sales using onevariable
functions. It then focuses on the back and forth movements between the
initial system – a time-series of the term sales of a firm – and the different models
proposed to make the forecasting. The analysis of these movements, that are at the
core of the ‘mathematising step’ of the modelling cycle, shows how the initial
empirical system is being enlarged and progressively enriched with new variables
and mathematical objects. Thus the development of a modelling activity initiated with
a real-situation may soon lead to a process where the mathematising affects both the
system and the model