Multi-Attribute Exchange Market: Theory and Experiments

The Internet has opened opportunities for efficient on-line trading, and researchers have developed algorithms for various auctions, as well as exchanges for standardized commodities; however, they have done little work on exchanges for complex nonstandard goods. We propose a formal model for trading complex goods, present an exchange system that allows traders to describe purchases and sales by multiple attributes, and give the results of applying it to a used-car market and corporate-bond market.