A linear programming model of housing market equilibrium

This paper reviews Wheaton's assertion that the Herbert-Stevens Linear Programming Model produces solutions which do not meet Alonso's criteria for market equilibrium. It demonstrates that, although Wheaton's criticism is valid in general, under certain conditions an alternative specification of the objective function coefficients and the dual variables in the linear program produces a model whose solutions satisfy Alonso's criteria. Finally, this paper shows that the NBER model is an application in which a linear programming problem computes market equilibria.