Searching Market Equilibria under Uncertain Utilities

Our basic model is a noncooperative multi-player game in which the governments of neighboring counties trade emission reductions. We prove the existence of a market equilibrium (combining properties of Pareto and Nash equilibria) and study algorithms of searching a market equilibrium. The algorithms are interpreted as repeated auctions in which the auctioneer has no information on countries' costs and benefits and every government has no information on the costs and benefits of other countries. In each round of the auction, the auctioneer offers individual prices for emission reductions and observes countries' best replies. We consider several auctioneer's policies and provide conditions that guarantee approaching a market equilibrium. From a game-theoretical point of view, the repeated auction describes a process of learning in a noncooperative repeated game with incomplete information

An auction-based market equilibrium algorithm for a production model

AbstractWe present an auction-based algorithm for computing market equilibrium prices in a production model, in which producers have a single linear production constraint, and consumers have linear utility functions. We provide algorithms for both the Fisher and Arrow–Debreu versions of the problem

Auction algorithms for market equilibrium with weak gross substitute demands and their applications

We consider the Arrow-Debreu exchange market model where agents' demands satisfy the weak gross substitutes (WGS) property. This is a well-studied property, in particular, it gives a sufficient condition for the convergence of the classical tâtonnement dynamics. In this paper, we present a simple auction algorithm that obtains an approximate market equilibrium for WGS demands. Such auction algorithms have been previously known for restricted classes of WGS demands only. As an application of our technique, we obtain an efficient algorithm to find an approximate spendingrestricted market equilibrium for WGS demands, a model that has been recently introduced as a continuous relaxation of the Nash social welfare (NSW) problem. This leads to a polynomial-time constant factor approximation algorithm for NSW with budget separable piecewise linear utility functions; only a pseudopolynomial approximation algorithm was known for this setting previously

Market Equilibrium with Transaction Costs

Identical products being sold at different prices in different locations is a common phenomenon. Price differences might occur due to various reasons such as shipping costs, trade restrictions and price discrimination. To model such scenarios, we supplement the classical Fisher model of a market by introducing {\em transaction costs}. For every buyer $i$ and every good $j$, there is a transaction cost of \cij; if the price of good $j$ is $p_j$, then the cost to the buyer $i$ {\em per unit} of $j$ is p_j + \cij. This allows the same good to be sold at different (effective) prices to different buyers. We provide a combinatorial algorithm that computes $\epsilon$-approximate equilibrium prices and allocations in $O\left(\frac{1}{\epsilon}(n+\log{m})mn\log(B/\epsilon)\right)$ operations - where $m$ is the number goods, $n$ is the number of buyers and $B$ is the sum of the budgets of all the buyers

An Investigation Report on Auction Mechanism Design

Auctions are markets with strict regulations governing the information available to traders in the market and the possible actions they can take. Since well designed auctions achieve desirable economic outcomes, they have been widely used in solving real-world optimization problems, and in structuring stock or futures exchanges. Auctions also provide a very valuable testing-ground for economic theory, and they play an important role in computer-based control systems. Auction mechanism design aims to manipulate the rules of an auction in order to achieve specific goals. Economists traditionally use mathematical methods, mainly game theory, to analyze auctions and design new auction forms. However, due to the high complexity of auctions, the mathematical models are typically simplified to obtain results, and this makes it difficult to apply results derived from such models to market environments in the real world. As a result, researchers are turning to empirical approaches. This report aims to survey the theoretical and empirical approaches to designing auction mechanisms and trading strategies with more weights on empirical ones, and build the foundation for further research in the field