IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nwu/cmsems/1256.html

The Optimality of a Simple Market Mechanism

Author

Listed:
  • Mark A. Satterthwaite
  • Steven R. Williams

Abstract

Strategic behavior in a finite market can cause inefficiency in the allocation, and market mechanisms differ in how successfully they limit this inefficiency. A method for ranking algorithms in computer science is adapted here to rank market mechanisms according to how quickly inefficiency diminishes as the size of the market increases. It is shown that trade at a single market-clearing price in the k-double auction is worst-case asymptotic optimal among all plausible mechanisms: evaluating mechanisms in their least favorable trading environments for each possible size of the market, the k-double auction is shown to force the worst-case inefficiency to zero at the fastest possible rate.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark A. Satterthwaite & Steven R. Williams, 1999. "The Optimality of a Simple Market Mechanism," Discussion Papers 1256, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:nwu:cmsems:1256
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/research/math/papers/1256.pdf
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Timothy N. Cason & Daniel Friedman, 1997. "Price Formation in Single Call Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(2), pages 311-346, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Neeman, Zvika, 2003. "The effectiveness of English auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 214-238, May.
    2. Zacharias, Eleftherios & Williams, Steven R., 2001. "Ex Post Efficiency in the Buyer's Bid Double Auction When Demand Can Be Arbitrarily Larger Than Supply," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 175-190, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lange, Andreas & Ross, Johannes, 2024. "Internalizing match-dependent externalities," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 218(C), pages 356-378.
    2. Eizo Akiyama & Nobuyuki Hanaki & Ryuichiro Ishikawa, 2017. "It is Not Just Confusion! Strategic Uncertainty in An Experimental Asset Market," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(605), pages 563-580, October.
    3. Edward Cartwright & Anna Stepanova, 2017. "Efficiency in a forced contribution threshold public good game," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 46(4), pages 1163-1191, November.
    4. Agastya, Murali, 2004. "Stochastic stability in a double auction," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 203-222, August.
    5. repec:ags:aaea22:335840 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Satterthwaite, Mark A. & Williams, Steven R. & Zachariadis, Konstantinos E., 2022. "Price discovery using a double auction," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 57-83.
    7. Bunn, Derek W. & Oliveira, Fernando S., 2007. "Agent-based analysis of technological diversification and specialization in electricity markets," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 181(3), pages 1265-1278, September.
    8. Lunawat, Radhika, 2021. "Learning from trading activity in laboratory security markets with higher-order uncertainty," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    9. Buckley, Neil J. & Cuff, Katherine & Hurley, Jeremiah & McLeod, Logan & Mestelman, Stuart & Cameron, David, 2012. "An experimental investigation of mixed systems of public and private health care finance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 713-729.
    10. Claudia Neri, 2015. "Eliciting beliefs in continuous-choice games: a double auction experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(4), pages 569-608, December.
    11. Morone, Andrea & Nuzzo, Simone, 2015. "Market Efficiency, Trading Institutions and Information Mirages: evidence from an experimental asset market," MPRA Paper 67448, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Bayer, Péter & Kozics, György & Szőke, Nóra Gabriella, 2023. "Best-response dynamics in directed network games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    13. John Duffy & Alexander Matros & Ted Temzelides, 2008. "Competitive Behavior in Market Games: Evidence and Theory," Working Paper 366, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, revised Jul 2010.
    14. P'eter Bayer & Gyorgy Kozics & N'ora Gabriella SzH{o}ke, 2021. "Best-response dynamics in directed network games," Papers 2101.03863, arXiv.org.
    15. Jason Childs, 2007. "Rate of Return Parity with Robot Asset Traders," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 29(1), pages 1-12, February.
    16. Todd Feldman & Daniel Friedman, 2010. "Human and Artificial Agents in a Crash-Prone Financial Market," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 36(3), pages 201-229, October.
    17. Eric Guerci & Nobuyuki Hanaki & Naoki Watanabe, 2017. "Meaningful learning in weighted voting games: an experiment," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 83(1), pages 131-153, June.
    18. Goeree, Jacob K. & Lindsay, Luke, 2016. "Market design and the stability of general equilibrium," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 37-68.
    19. Jose Apesteguia & Martin Dufwenberg & Reinhard Selten, 2007. "Blowing the Whistle," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 31(1), pages 143-166, April.
    20. Fenig, Guidon & Mileva, Mariya & Petersen, Luba, 2018. "Deflating asset price bubbles with leverage constraints and monetary policy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 1-27.
    21. Jean Paul Rabanal & Olga A. Rabanal, 2015. "A Simulation on the Evolution of Markets: Call Market, Decentralized and Posted Offer," Working Papers 34, Peruvian Economic Association.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nwu:cmsems:1256. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Fran Walker The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Fran Walker to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cmnwuus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.