Sets in excess demand in simple ascending auctions with unit‐demand bidders

This paper analyzes the problem of selecting a set of items whose prices are to be updated in the next iteration in so called simple ascending auctions with unit‐demand bidders. A family of sets called ‘sets in excess demand’ is introduced, and the main result demonstrates that a simple ascending auction always terminates at the minimum Walrasian equilibrium prices if and only if the selection belongs to this family.