The complexity of recursion schemes and recursive programming languages

Deterministic exponential lower time bounds are obtained for analyzing monadic recursion schemes, multi-variable recursion schemes, and recursive programs. The lower bound for multivariable recursion schemes holds for any domain of interpretation with at least two elements. The lower bound for recursive programs holds for any recursive programming language with a nontrivial predicate test (i.e. a predicate test that is neither identically true nor identically false). Exponential lower bounds on depth of nesting of recursive function calls play an important role in the proofs of these bounds. In contrast, polynomial upper bounds on depth of nesting are obtained for total and linear monadic recursion schemes. As corollaries, several decision problems for these scheme classes are shown to have nondeterministic polynomially time-bounded algorithms.