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Many optimization problems can be equivalently formulated in this standard form. For example, the problem of maximizing a concave function can be re-formulated equivalently as the problem of minimizing the convex function . The problem of maximizing a concave function over a convex set is commonly called a convex optimization problem.
This condition is only slightly weaker than convexity. For example, a real-valued Lebesgue measurable function that is midpoint-convex is convex: this is a theorem of Sierpiński. [8] In particular, a continuous function that is midpoint convex will be convex.
then is called strictly convex. [1]Convex functions are related to convex sets. Specifically, the function is convex if and only if its epigraph. A function (in black) is convex if and only if its epigraph, which is the region above its graph (in green), is a convex set.
For example, Constant Elasticity of Substitution (CES) utility functions describe convex, homothetic preferences. CES preferences are self-dual and both primal and dual CES preferences yield systems of indifference curves that may exhibit any degree of convexity.
Convexity is a geometric property with a variety of applications in economics. [1] Informally, an economic phenomenon is convex when "intermediates (or combinations) are better than extremes". For example, an economic agent with convex preferences prefers combinations of goods over having a lot of any one sort of good; this represents a kind of ...
The convexity property can make optimization in some sense "easier" than the general case - for example, any local minimum must be a global minimum. Convex polygon - a 2-dimensional polygon whose interior is a convex set in the Euclidean plane. Convex polytope - an n-dimensional polytope which is also a convex set in the Euclidean n-dimensional ...
For every proper convex function : [,], there exist some and such that ()for every .. The sum of two proper convex functions is convex, but not necessarily proper. [4] For instance if the sets and are non-empty convex sets in the vector space, then the characteristic functions and are proper convex functions, but if = then + is identically equal to +.
Let : be a convex function with domain . A classical subgradient method iterates (+) = () where () denotes any subgradient of at (), and () is the iterate of . If is differentiable, then its only subgradient is the gradient vector itself.