This paper discusses how to design, solve and estimate dynamic programming models using the open source package niqlow. Reasons are given for why such a package has not appeared earlier and why the object-oriented approach followed by niqlow seems essential. An example is followed that starts...

I introduce and evaluate a new stochastic simulation method for dynamic economic models. It is based on recent work in the operations research and engineering literatures (Van Roy et. al, 1997; Powell, 2007; Bertsekas, 2011). The baseline method involves rewriting the household's dynamic program in...

We introduce the market resources method (MRM) for solving dynamic optimization problems. MRM extends Carroll’s (2006) endogenous grid point method (EGM) for problems with more than one control variable using policy function iteration. The MRM algorithm is simple to implement and provides...

We propose two modifications to the method of endogenous grid points that greatly decreases the computational time for life cycle models with many exogenous state variables. First, we use simulated stochastic grids on the exogenous state variables. Second, when we interpolate to find the...

We use the technique of information relaxation to develop a duality-driven iterative approach to obtaining and improving confidence interval estimates for the true value of finite-horizon stochasticdynamic programming problems. We show that the sequence of dual value estimates yielded from the...

We introduce an envelope condition method (ECM) for solving dynamic programming problems. ECM iterates on the Bellman equation forward and is much faster than conventional value function methods that iterate backward. In the studied examples, ECM is comparable in accuracy and cost to Carroll's...

In this contribution we propose a dynamic tracking error problem and we consider the problem of monitoring at discrete point the shortfall of the portfolio below a set of given reference levels of wealth. We formulate and solve the resulting dynamic optimization problem using stochastic...

In this contribution we propose an approach to solve a multistage stochastic programming problem which allows us to obtain a time and nodal decomposition of the original problem. This double decomposition is achieved applying a discrete time optimal control formulation to the original stochastic...

Dynamic programming is the essential tool in dynamic economic analysis. Problems such as portfolio allocation for individuals and optimal economic growth are typical examples. Numerical methods typically approximate the value function. Recent work has focused on making numerical methods more...

We introduce a novel simulated certainty equivalent approximation (SCEQ) method for solving dynamic stochastic problems. Our examples show that SCEQ can quickly solve high-dimensional finite- or infinite-horizon, stationary or non- stationary dynamic stochastic problems with hundreds of state...