Demand-flow of agents with gross-substitute valuations

Erel Segal-Halevi, Avinatan Hassidim, Yonatan Aumann

Abstract: We consider the gross-substitute (GS) condition introduced by Kelso and Crawford (1982). GS is a condition on the demand-flow in a specific scenario: some items become more expensive while other items retain their price. We prove that GS is equivalent to a much stronger condition, describing the demand-flow in the general scenario in which all prices may change: the demand of GS agents always flows (weakly) downwards, i.e., from items with higher price-increase to items with lower price-increase.