Can Markets Compute Equilibria? /

Recent turmoil in financial and commodities markets has renewed questions regarding how well markets discover equilibrium prices, particularly when those markets are highly complex. A relatively new critique questions whether markets can realistically find equilibrium prices if computers cannot. For...

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Xehetasun bibliografikoak
Egile nagusia: Monroe, Hunter
Formatua: Aldizkaria
Hizkuntza:English
Argitaratua: Washington, D.C. : International Monetary Fund, 2009.
Saila:IMF Working Papers; Working Paper ; No. 2009/024
Gaiak:
Sarrera elektronikoa:Full text available on IMF
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245 1 0 |a Can Markets Compute Equilibria? /  |c Hunter Monroe. 
264 1 |a Washington, D.C. :  |b International Monetary Fund,  |c 2009. 
300 |a 1 online resource (22 pages) 
490 1 |a IMF Working Papers 
500 |a <strong>Off-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required 
500 |a <strong>On-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required 
506 |a Electronic access restricted to authorized BRAC University faculty, staff and students 
520 3 |a Recent turmoil in financial and commodities markets has renewed questions regarding how well markets discover equilibrium prices, particularly when those markets are highly complex. A relatively new critique questions whether markets can realistically find equilibrium prices if computers cannot. For instance, in a simple exchange economy with Leontief preferences, the time required to compute equilibrium prices using the fastest known techniques is an exponential function of the number of goods. Furthermore, no efficient technique for this problem exists if a famous mathematical conjecture is correct. The conjecture states loosely that there are some problems for which finding an answer (i.e., an equilibrium price vector) is hard even though it is easy to check an answer (i.e., that a given price vector is an equilibrium). This paper provides a brief overview of computational complexity accessible to economists, and points out that the existence of computational problems with no best solution algorithm is relevant to this conjecture. 
538 |a Mode of access: Internet 
650 7 |a Equilibrium Price  |2 imf 
650 7 |a WP  |2 imf 
830 0 |a IMF Working Papers; Working Paper ;  |v No. 2009/024 
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