Recon - Computational Tools for Economics

This package aims to provide undergraduate students and professors realiable ways of computing and exploring canonical models in economics. It creates a rich enviroment for comparative statics, visualization of results and better understanding of model outcomes.

Installation

You can install the latest version of Recon by running:

devtools::install_github('pedrocava/Recon')

## or directly from CRAN

install.packages('Recon')

Which should return something similar to:

Installing package into ‘C:/Users/Pedro/Documents/R/win-library/3.5’
(as ‘lib’ is unspecified)
* installing *source* package 'Recon' ...
** R
** byte-compile and prepare package for lazy loading
** help
*** installing help indices
  converting help for package 'Recon'
    finding HTML links ... done
    MRW_steady_state                        html  
    cobb_douglas                            html  
    cobb_douglas_2                          html  
    cournot_solver                          html  
    grid2                                   html  
    monopoly_solver                         html  
    sim_mixed_nasheq                        html  
    sim_pure_nasheq                         html  
    solow_steady_state                      html  
    stackelberg_solver                      html  
** building package indices
** testing if installed package can be loaded
*** arch - i386
*** arch - x64
* DONE (Recon)
In R CMD INSTALL

Please note that you should have Rtools installed.

Features by theme

To get a general view of what's implemented in Recon directly from R you can run:

help(package = Recon)

Economic Growth

Steady state solution to the model presented in Solow (1956)
Steady state solution to the model presented in Mankiw, Romer and Weil (1992)

Cobb-Douglas Functions

Computing Cobb-Douglas functions with 2 inputs
Computing Cobb-Douglas functions with $n$-inputs

Miscellaneous

Grid generating function, so one can map results easily

Game Theory

Finds the Pure Strategies Nash Equilibrium of a 2 person simultaneous game
Finds the Mixed Strategies Nash Equilibrium of a 2 person simultaneous game, for 2x2 pay-off matrices

Imperfect Competition

Solution to a Cournot Duopoly Model, with linear and non-linear cost and demand curves
Solution to a Stackelberg Duopoly Model, with non-linear cost curves
Solution to Monopoly Profit Maximization

Upcoming Features and Suggestions

Feel free to ask/suggest a model for implementation. If you want to implement one youself, fork this repo and then do a pull request with your new functions. After reviewing, you'll be credited and your functions will be part of Recon. Features that are currently under work:

Bertrand Duopoly Model with differentiated goods
Cournot Oligpoly with n firms and homogenous cost functions
McCall Search Model
Optimal consumer choice
Optimal output for a single firm under perfect competition
Walrasian Auctions and primitive forms of Computable General Equilibrium

What we're aiming for in the long run

Right now Recon is just a small group of relatively simple functions. There's a lot to be made before version 1.0, but here's a taste of what's planned for it:

Classes representing economic entities such as consumers, firms and markets.
Methods for handling these classes and solving models with them
Rich variety of functions for visualization and comparative statics

Citation

To cite package ‘Recon’ in publications use:

Pedro Cavalcante Oliveira, Diego S. Cardoso and Marcelo Gelati (2019). Recon: Computational Tools for Economics. R package version 0.3.0.0. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=Recon

A BibTeX entry for LaTeX users is:

  @Manual{recon,
    title = {Recon: Computational Tools for Economics},
    author = {Pedro {Cavalcante Oliveira} and Diego {S. Cardoso} and Marcelo Gelati},
    year = {2019},
    note = {R package version 0.3.0.0},
    url = {https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=Recon},
  }