The new science of chaos came about through weather analysis. Starting from the premise that economics is equally unpredictable, this original new book explores the ways that chaos theory may be used for economic analysis. The author shows that, since chaos theory sets out to demonstrate erratic and unpredictable behavior in a situation of total cause and effect, it has much to offer in understanding human society and the unpredictable nature of economics. It has always been assumed that the highly irregular behavior of economic time series was the consequence of extra-economic disturbances such as political decisions, trade unions, the weather, foreign trade, etc. Goodwin makes it clear that there are not one, but two explanations of this confusing behavior.