Comparison and integration with QuantEcon

[sbenthall]

In the United States, the library with the closest mission to HARK -- a library for economics modeling useful in teaching and research -- is QuantEcon. In addition to a similar mission, I gather that it is inspired by similar Economics theory, including rational expectations and dynamic optimization.

https://github.com/QuantEcon/QuantEcon.py

It is also clear that the libraries are structured very differently from each other, and that HARK has capabilities that go well beyond QuantEcon in scope. QuantEcon is also written in both Python and Julia, whereas we have focused on Python for HARK.

It would be beneficial if:

• We had a clear document describing how QuantEcon and HARK were similar and different
• We technically integrated with QuantEcon.py, where appropriate -- such that we used QuantEcon components if and when they were the robust right tool for the job in HARK

Substantive cooperation between the libraries would, perhaps, create a broader base for computational economics curricula.