Linear Programming Part 1 J. M. Pogodzinski carol carol carol carol Agenda • Mathematical Programming Problems • Economic Theory and Mathematical Programming Problems • Linear Programming Problems • The Objective Function • The Inequality Constraints • The Non-Negativity Constraints (which are inequality constraints) • Equality Constraints? • The Feasible Set • Does a Solution Exist to a Linear Programming Problem? (the existence question) • Applications (Uses) of Linear Programming • Solving Linear Programming Problems • Theorems About Linear Programming Mathematical Programming Problems • A Mathematical Programming Problem consists of: • An objective function • Constraints defined somehow – equations, inequalities,… • Little can be said about such a general problem – we need to make assumptions about the objective function and/or about the constraints before we can say anything about the existence of solutions, algorithms for finding solutions (if they exist), properties of solutions About Objective Functions • Very common to assume there is only one objective function • Objective functions are either maximized or minimized – the generic term is optimized. The specific problem determines whether maximization or minimization is appropriate. There are deeper connections between maximization and minimization. Maximization problems can be restated as minimization problems. More importantly, specific maximization problems are associated with specific minimization problems through duality. • It is possible to consider multi-objective mathematical programming problems (there is a legitimate topic called multi-objective linear programming) • What do you get out of multi-objective linear programming (if there is a solution)? • The Pareto Frontier • We will not consider multi-objective linear programming because it is computationally difficult About Objective Functions • Example (from microeconomics): Consumers maximize utility subject to a budget constraint • 𝑚𝑎𝑥𝑥,𝑦 𝑈 𝑥,𝑦 𝑠𝑢𝑏𝑗𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑥𝑥 + 𝑝𝑦𝑦 = 𝑀 (and 𝑥 ≥ 0 and y ≥ 0) • We assume that 𝑈 𝑥,𝑦 is a quasi-concave continuous function (Note: famous paper “Quasi-Concave Programming” by Kenneth J. Arrow and Alain C. Enthoven, Econometrica, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Oct., 1961), pp. 779-800) • A function 𝑈 𝑥,𝑦 is quasi-concave if its upper level sets are convex sets Constraints • Most common to define constraints by one or more equations or inequalities • Note on finite constraint sets – existence of optimum • For example, in the consumer choice problem mentioned in the previous slide, an equation called the budget equation defined the constraint set - 𝑝𝑥𝑥 + 𝑝𝑦𝑦 = 𝑀 (and 𝑥 ≥ 0 and y ≥ 0) • We might also have defined the constraint set with several inequalities: 𝑝𝑥𝑥 + 𝑝𝑦𝑦 ≤ 𝑀 and 𝑥 ≥ 0 and y ≥ 0 • We can write the equation 𝑝𝑥𝑥 + 𝑝𝑦𝑦 = 𝑀 as two inequalities: 𝑝𝑥𝑥 + 𝑝𝑦𝑦 ≤ 𝑀 and 𝑝𝑥𝑥 + 𝑝𝑦𝑦 ≥ 𝑀