Automated Economic Reasoning with Quantifier Elimination

Many theorems in economics can be proven (and hypotheses shown to be false) with available decision algorithms. This paper assembles a few dozen classic examples from economic theory that demonstrate why CAD-based algorithms are practical, and how the infamous double-exponential characterization of their complexity can be misleading in practice. The discrepancy between reputation and practice comes from a combination of: the approximation error in asymptotic complexity theory, the distinction between projecting formulas and projecting polynomial sets, and the algebraic structure of the applied problems. The results also suggest possibilities for (a) finding resource-conserving sequences for eliminating variables and (b) enhancing SMT-solver and other non-CAD algorithms for application to economic reasoning.

Speaker Details

Casey B. Mulligan, Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago in 1993 and has also served as a visiting professor teaching public economics at Harvard University, Clemson University, and the Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. He is affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research, the George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State, and the Population Research Center. He has received awards and fellowships from the Manhattan Institute, the National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Smith-Richardson Foundation, and the John M. Olin Foundation. His research covers capital and labor taxation, the gender wage gap, health economics, Social Security, voting and the economics of aging. Mulligan has written widely on discrepancies between economic analysis and conventional wisdom. Before Side Effects, he wrote The Redistribution Recession (opens in new tab) and Parental Priorities and Economic Inequality. He has also written numerous opeds and blog entries for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, the Chicago Tribune, http://blogsupplyanddemand.com, and other blogs and periodicals.

Date:
Speakers:
Casey Mulligan
Affiliation:
University of Chicago