Markets and the Primal-Dual Paradigm

Google Tech Talks June 1, 2007 ABSTRACT The notion of a ``market'' has undergone a paradigm shift with the Internet -- totally new and highly successful markets have been defined and launched by companies such as Google, Yahoo!, Amazon, MSN and Ebay. These markets are computationally intensive; indeed, this is just the beginning of a much larger revolution in which algorithmic considerations are bound to have an impact. In view of these new realities, the study of market equilibria, an important, though essentially non-algorithmic, theory within Mathematical Economics, needs to be revived and rejuvenated with new models, ideas, and an inherently algorithmic approach. Interestingly enough,...