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Newman, Neil

University of British Columbia

This thesis has two main concerns. The first is infrastructure that allows complex, electronic markets to function, ranging from web applications to highly specialized clearing algorithms. The second is developing computational methods to assess alternative market designs. I describe efforts developing and deploying computational infrastructure in support of markets in two very different domains: subsistence agriculture and radio spectrum allocation. I detail practical experiences (a) running a feature-phone based marketplace for agricultural trade built to match farmers with traders in developing countries, and (b) designing a solver to overcome the computational challenge of station repacking in the recent US "incentive" spectrum auction. I then present a series of three computational methods for evaluating alternative market designs, beginning with a setting where plausible models of bidding behavior are known, then relaxing this assumption and studying single-action and later sequential games.

Text

2024-03-27

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/87648

Computer Science

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/