Walrasian auctioneer

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The Walrasian auctioneer (introduced by Leon Walras) is the presumed auctioneer that matches supply and demand in a market of perfect competition. The auctioneer provides for the features of perfect competition: perfect information and no transaction costs. The process is called tâtonnement, or groping, relating to finding the market clearing price for all commodities and giving rise to general equilibrium.

The tatonnement process works as follows. Prices are cried, and agents register how much of each good they would like to offer (supply) or purchase (demand). No transactions and no production take place at disequilibrium prices. Instead, prices are lowered for goods with positive prices and excess supply. Prices are raised for goods with excess demand. The question for the mathematician is under what conditions such a process will terminate in equilibrium in which demand equates to supply for goods with positive prices and demand does not exceed supply for goods with a price of zero. Walras was not able to provide a definitive answer to this question (see Unresolved Problems in General Equilibrium below). However, the Sonnenschein-Mantel-Debreu Theorem states that an equilibrium need not be unique.

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