A Comparison of Programming Languages in Economics

NBER Working Paper No. 20263

Issued in June 2014, Revised in July 2014

NBER Program(s):Economic Fluctuations and Growth



We solve the stochastic neoclassical growth model, the workhorse of modern macroeconomics, using C++11, Fortran 2008, Java, Julia, Python, Matlab, Mathematica, and R. We implement the same algorithm, value function iteration with grid search, in each of the languages. We report the execution times of the codes in a Mac and in a Windows computer and briefly comment on the strengths and weaknesses of each language.

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Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w20263

Published: Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control Volume 58, September 2015, Pages 265-273

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