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Simplex Method for Solving Linear Programs

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The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics

Abstract

The simplex method is used to solve linear programming problems based on pivoting from one iteration to the next. Invented by George Dantzig in 1947, it can be stated in 20 or so instructions for a computer. Commercial codes based on the simplex method, however, usually involve thousands of instructions which are there to take advantage of sparsity (most coefficients of practical problems are zero), to make it easy to start from solutions to variants of the same problem, and to guarantee numerical accuracy of the solution for large-scale systems.

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Dantzig, G.B. (2018). Simplex Method for Solving Linear Programs. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_1457

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