arXiv AI

OckBench: Measuring the Efficiency of LLM Reasoning

arXiv:2511. 05722v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-5 and Gemini 3 have pushed the frontier of automated reasoning and code generation.

arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 25

Quantization Inflates Reasoning: Token Inflation as a Hidden Cost of Low-Bit Reasoning Models

arXiv:2606. 25519v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Quantization is widely used to reduce the inference cost of large language models, but its effect on reasoning models is not fully captured by final-answer accuracy or per-token latency.

By Xinyu Lian, Walid Krichene, Beichen Huang, Masahiro Tanaka, Olatunji Ruwase, Li Zhang, Minjia Zhang
arXiv AI
Sep 7

Harnessing the Reasoning Economy: A Survey of Efficient Reasoning for Large Language Models

The paper surveys efficient reasoning in large language models, contrasting fast intuitive (System 1) and slow deep (System 2) reasoning. It analyzes why System 2 is computationally costly yet more accurate, and why System 1 is efficient but less effective. The survey covers causes of inefficiency, patterns of reasoning behavior, and potential solutions to balance performance and computational budgets, offering actionable insights and an open‑source repository for ongoing research.

By Rui Wang, Hongru Wang, Boyang Xue, Jianhui Pang, Shudong Liu, Yi Chen, Jiahao Qiu, Derek Fai Wong, Heng Ji, Kam-Fai Wong
arXiv AI
Jun 15

Fractured Chain-of-Thought Reasoning

arXiv:2505. 12992v4 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Inference-time scaling techniques have significantly bolstered the reasoning capabilities of large language models (LLMs) by harnessing additional computational effort at inference without retraining.

By Baohao Liao, Hanze Dong, Yuhui Xu, Doyen Sahoo, Christof Monz, Junnan Li, Caiming Xiong
arXiv AI
Aug 28

The Reasoning Tax: Token Economics of LLM Reasoning Across Task Types and Deployment Contexts

The paper introduces the Token Economy Score (TES), a metric that quantifies the accuracy gain of reasoning-capable large language models relative to non-reasoning baselines, normalized by token generation cost. An empirical study across 151 runs on seven diverse benchmarks shows that task structure—such as sequential inference chains—predicts higher TES, while knowledge-recall tasks yield lower TES despite difficulty. The analysis also reveals diminishing returns at higher reasoning effort and highlights how deployment context, via Reasoning Cost Share and Deployment Cost Multiplier, can alter the economic viability of reasoning workloads.

By Sachin Gopal Wani, Ajay Dholakia, David Ellison
arXiv Computation and Language
Sep 23

Capable yet Parsimonious: Extracting and Characterizing Hidden Chain-of-Thought in Frontier Models

The paper demonstrates that frontier language models can be prompted to expose their internal chain-of-thought reasoning via a simple custom tool. By comparing these extracted traces to native reasoning on open-source models, the authors confirm that the externalized reasoning aligns with genuine reasoning and outperforms no-reasoning baselines across math, science, and code tasks. They further analyze the structure of the reasoning, noting token-efficient, directed reasoning in models like GPT‑6 Astra, which externalizes only crucial steps while handling elementary ones internally.

By Xiaoyu Luo, Tao Ren, Wenrui Yu, Xiao Li, Qiongxiu Li, Johannes Bjerva
arXiv Computation and Language
Aug 28

TRACES: Tagging Reasoning Steps for Adaptive Cost-Efficient Early-Stopping

TRACES (Tagging Reasoning Steps for Adaptive Cost‑Efficient Early‑Stopping) is a lightweight framework that tags reasoning steps of large‑language models in real time, enabling adaptive, cost‑efficient early stopping during inference. By monitoring the types of steps generated, the method identifies when models shift their reasoning after arriving at a correct answer, allowing for interpretable stopping criteria. Experiments on mathematical reasoning benchmarks (MATH500, GSM8K, AIME) and knowledge benchmarks (MMLU, GPQA) show token reductions of 20–50% while preserving accuracy, with more conservative thresholds needed for harder tasks such as BeyondAIME and IMO AnswerBench.

By Yannis Belkhiter, Seshu Tirupathi, Giulio Zizzo, John D. Kelleher