| Article ID: | iaor20091170 |
| Country: | Netherlands |
| Volume: | 5 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| Start Page Number: | 159 |
| End Page Number: | 167 |
| Publication Date: | May 2008 |
| Journal: | Discrete Optimization |
| Authors: | Arrow Kenneth J. |
| Keywords: | history, programming: linear |
The role of optimization is central to economic analysis, particularly in its ‘neoclassical’ phase, since about 1870, and is therefore highly compatible with the impulse behind linear programming (LP), as developed by Dantzig. LP's stress on alternative activities fits very well with modern economic analysis. The concept of economic equilibrium, properly understood, required the central notion of complementary slackness, so central in LP.