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Abstract

Stochastic programming is the subfield of mathematical programming that considers optimization in the presence of uncertainty. During the last four decades a vast quantity of literature on the subject has appeared. Developments in the theory of computational complexity allow us to establish the theoretical complexity of a variety of stochastic programming problems studied in this literature. Under the assumption that the stochastic parameters are independently distributed, we show that two-stage stochastic programming problems are ♯P-hard. Under the same assumption we show that certain multi-stage stochastic programming problems are PSPACE-hard. The problems we consider are non-standard in that distributions of stochastic parameters in later stages depend on decisions made in earlier stages.
Supported by the EPSRC grant ``Phase Transitions in the Complexity of Randomised Algorithms'', by the EC IST project RAND-APX, and by the MRT Network ADONET of the European Community (MRTN-CT-2003-504438).

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