computational economics Computational Economics is an interdisciplinary research discipline that involves computer science, economics, and management science.''Computational Economics''."About This Journal"an"Aims and Scope" This subject encompasses computational model ...

, a single-minded agent is an agent who wants only a very specific combination of items. The

valuation function Valuation may refer to: Economics *Valuation (finance), the determination of the economic value of an asset or liability **Real estate appraisal, sometimes called ''property valuation'' (especially in British English), the appraisal of land or bui ...

of such an agent assigns a positive value only to a specific set of items, and to all sets that contain it. It assigns a zero value to all other sets. A single-minded agent regards the set of items he wants as purely

complementary goods In economics, a complementary good is a good whose appeal increases with the popularity of its complement. Technically, it displays a negative cross elasticity of demand and that demand for it increases when the price of another good decreases. I ...

. Various computational problems related to allocation of items are easier when all the agents are known to be single-minded. For example: * Revenue-maximizing auctions. * Multi-item exchange. *

Fair cake-cutting Fair cake-cutting is a kind of fair division problem. The problem involves a ''heterogeneous'' resource, such as a cake with different toppings, that is assumed to be ''divisible'' – it is possible to cut arbitrarily small pieces of it without ...

and

fair item allocation Fair item allocation is a kind of a fair division problem in which the items to divide are ''discrete'' rather than continuous. The items have to be divided among several partners who value them differently, and each item has to be given as a whol ...

. * Combinatorial auctions. *

Envy-free pricing Envy-free pricing is a kind of fair item allocation. There is a single seller that owns some items, and a set of buyers who are interested in these items. The buyers have different valuations to the items, and they have a quasilinear utility functio ...

Comparison to other valuation functions

As mentioned above, a single-minded agent regards the goods as purely complementary goods In contrast, an additive agent assigns a positive value to every item, and assigns to every bundle a value that is the sum of the items in contains. An additive agent regards the set of items he wants as purely

independent goods Independent goods are goods that have a zero cross elasticity of demand. Changes in the price of one good will have no effect on the demand for an independent good. Thus independent goods are neither complements nor substitutes. For example, a ...

. In contrast, a unit-demand agent wants only a single item, and assigns to every bundle a value that is the maximum value of an item contained in it. A unit-demand agent regards the items as purely substitute goods.

References

{{reflist Utility function types