Qualitative modeling and simulation of socio-economic phenomena

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 satis es 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 su cient information to the decision maker.