On the complexity of price equilibria

Xiaotie Deng*, Christos Papadimitriou, Shmuel Safra

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

55 Scopus citations

Abstract

We prove complexity, approximability, and inapproximability results for the problem of finding an exchange equilibrium in markets with indivisible (integer) goods, most notably a polynomial algorithm that approximates the market equilibrium arbitrarily close when the number of goods is bounded and the utilities linear. We also show a communication complexity lower bound in a model appropriate for markets. Our result implies that the ideal informational economy of a market with divisible goods and unique optimal allocations is unattainable in general.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)311-324
Number of pages14
JournalJournal of Computer and System Sciences
Volume67
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2003

Funding

FundersFunder number
International Business Machines Corporation
National Science Foundation0081698, ITR-0081698, ITR-0121555
RGCCityU1081/02E
City University of Hong Kong7001215

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