The original purpose of the NOMEPRE research program was to bind together a number of interesting developments taking place in the field of nonparametric research methods in Economics. Like in Statistics, the term "nonparametric" refers to avoidance of an explicit specification of the function form of the probability distribution (consider e.g. Kolmogorof-Smirnov test), but it also refers to the line of research initiated by Paul Samuelson in his famous "theory of revealed preference". In Economics, the nonparametric approach also includes analyses of the consumer or the firm behavior without explicit specification of the consumer's preferences or the firm's production possibilities. Since the economic theory can typically suggest only some rather weak guidelines regarding the function form (e.g. monotonicity, convexity, homotheticity), the nonparametric orientation offers many promising opportunities for applied research. However, the route from the abstract but elegant economic theory to the complex real-world empirical applications is often considered a bridge too far. The purpose of this project is to develop innovative methods to fill in this gap.

In some contrast to the mainstream "revealed preference" literature, the main focus of this program lies in the production side of the economy, with a view towards the related issues of sustainable use of natural resources and the optimization of the investment portfolio. These areas provide a wealth fascinating opportunities as well as challenges for the nonparametric methods.

In recent years, the NOMEPRE group has focused on the development of the new Stochastic Nonparametric Envelopment of Data (StoNED) method, which is described in more detail at the StoNED homepage.

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