On the Computational Complexity of Bilevel Integer Linear Programming
Optimization and Control
2026-07-16 v1
Abstract
We investigate the computational complexity of bilevel integer linear programming. While Jeroslow~(1985) established that the decision version of this problem is -complete when restricted to binary variables, we prove that this -completeness persists even for general integer variables, settling a question that remained open for over 40 years. Furthermore, we analyze the impact of various structural assumptions on computational complexity. Notably, we strengthen the result of K\"oppe et al.~(2010) by proving polynomial-time solvability whenever the total number of upper- and lower-level variables is fixed, without any additional assumptions.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2607.15369,
title = {On the Computational Complexity of Bilevel Integer Linear Programming},
author = {Nagisa Sugishita and Margarida Carvalho},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.15369},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
12 pages