COWLES FOUNDATION FOR RESEARCH IN ECONOMICS
AT YALE UNIVERSITY

Box 208281
New Haven, CT 06520-8281

COWLES FOUNDATION DISCUSSION PAPER NO. 665

"Blockmodeling Complex Statutes:
Mapping Techniques Based on Combinatorial Optimization
for Analyzing Economic Legislation and Its Stress Points over Time"

Scott A. Boorman and Paul R. Levitt

March 1983

Blockmodeling, a combinatorial technique for relational data analysis, is applied to studying texts of complex economic legislation. By making this area a subject for mathematical modeling, using methods related to combinatories, logic, and discrete optimization, we describe a new type of frontier between law and economics.