Competitive Equilibrium with Generic Budgets: Beyond Additive

Understand

We study competitive equilibrium in the canonical Fisher market model, but with indivisible goods.

• In this model, every agent has a budget of artificial currency with which to purchase bundles of goods.
• Equilibrium prices match between demand and supply---at such prices, all agents simultaneously get their favorite within-budget bundle, and the market clears.
• Unfortunately, a competitive equilibrium may not exist when the goods are indivisible, even in extremely simple markets such as two agents with exactly the same budget and a single item.