Optimal growth and planning in a multi-regional economy: A computer program and application to the Italian case

One of the main problems in economic planning is to determine the amount of resources that should be allocated with the aim of reaching some specified goals. To this aim, we attack this problem by explicitly considering development programmes over a finite time horizon. We therefore, formulate a multi-regional input-output system for reaching planning goals established in terms of production in a given time interval, simultaneously minimizing transportation and investment costs. The resulting complex nonlinear programming problem is numerically solved in terms of dynamic programming techniques. The software program, the application to the Italian economy, and the numerical results are finally presented.