Knuth Prize Lecture: Complexity of Communication in Markets

Summary form only given. The complete presentation was not made available for publication as part of the conference proceedings. A classical point of view in Economic Theory is that prices in markets serve as a communication mechanism between the participants (buyers and sellers) in the market. I will analyze the communication complexity (in the standard sense used in Theoretical Computer Science) required for obtaining efficiency and equilibrium in several scenarios of markets of indivisible goods.