Extending polynomial time computability to markets with demand correspondences

  • Authors:
  • Benton McCune

  • Affiliations:
  • University of Iowa

  • Venue:
  • WINE'07 Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Internet and network economics
  • Year:
  • 2007

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Abstract

We present a polynomial time algorithm that computes an approximate equilibrium for any exchange economy with a demand correspondence satisfying gross substitutability. Such a result was previously known only for the case where the demand is a function, that is, at any price, there is only one demand vctor. The case of multi valued demands that is dealt with here arises in many settings, notably when the traders have linear utilities. We also show that exchange markets in the spending constraint model have demand correspodences satisfying gross substitutability and that they always have an equilibrium price vector with rational numbers. As a consequence, the framework considered here leads to the first exact polynomial time algorithm for this model.