Non-linear Real Arithmetic Benchmarks derived from Automated Reasoning in Economics

Abstract

We consider problems originating in economics that may be solved automatically using mathematical software. We present and make freely available a new benchmark set of such problems. The problems have been shown to fall within the framework of non-linear real arithmetic, and so are in theory soluble via Quantifier Elimination (QE) technology as usually implemented in computer algebra systems. Further, they all can be phrased in prenex normal form with only existential quantifiers and so are also admissible to those Satisfiability Module Theory (SMT) solvers that support the QF_NRA. There is a great body of work considering QE and SMT application in science and engineering, but we demonstrate here that there is potential for this technology also in the social sciences.