Integer programming and pricing revisited

Abstract

Three applications of duality are mentioned: mathematical, computational, and economic. One of the earliest attempts toproduce a dual of an integer programme with economic interpretations was by Gomory & Baumol in 1960. This is describedtogether with its economic properties and some refinements and corrections. A more recent integer programming dual due to Chvátal, whose main use to date has been computational, is then described. It is shown that this can be given an economic interpretation as a generalization of Gomory & Baumol‘s dual which rectifies some of the deficiencies of the latter. The computational problems of calculating Chvátal’s dual are remarked on