(Near-)Substitute Preferences and Equilibria with Indivisibilities

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Nguyen, Thanh; Vohra, Rakesh
• 署名单位: Purdue University System; Purdue University; University of Pennsylvania
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-3808
• DOI: 10.1086/731413
• 发表日期: 2024
• 页码: 4122-4154
• 关键词: approximate competitive-equilibrium; Walrasian equilibrium; trading networks; allocation; economies; convexity; MARKETS; GOODS

摘要

An obstacle to using market mechanisms to allocate indivisible goods is the lack of competitive equilibria (CEs). Arrow and Hahn introduced social-approximate equilibria: price vectors with small excess demands. We define preferences called Delta-substitutes, where social-approximate equilibria exist with good-by-good excess demand bounded by 2(Delta-1), independent of economy size. For Delta=1, CEs exist even with income effects. A Delta greater than 1 allows for richer substitutability and complementarity patterns, broadening the scope for market mechanisms to allocate indivisible goods.