Discipline: Economics
Catastrophe theory has its roots in the work of French mathematician Jules Henri Poincare (1854-1912).
A mathematical study of the transition from one state of equilibrium to another and the ensuing instability.
The analysis shows how many stable equilibria exist given a choice of control variables but does not show which of them will be in a particular system.
Source:
P T Saunders, An Introduction to Catastrophe Theory (Cambridge, 1980)