Qualitative Modeling and Simulation of Socio-Economic Phenomena

Abstract

This paper describes an application of recently developed qualitative reasoning techniques to complex, socio-economic allocation problems. We explain why we believe traditional optimization methods are inappropriate and how qualitative reasoning could overcome some of these shortcomings. A case study is presented where an authority is expected to devise a policy that satisfies certain constraints. We describe how sets of rules of thumb implementing such a policy can be analyzed and validated by the decision maker using a program which automatically builds and simulates qualitative models of the underlying dynamical system. Such a program constructs and simulates models from incomplete descriptions of initial states and functional relationships between variables. We show that it nevertheless gives sufficient information to the decision maker.Qualitative Modeling, Qualitative Reasoning, Decision Making, Allocation