We consider the problem of allocating indivisible objects to agents when agents have strict preferences over objects. There are inherent trade-offs between competing notions of efficiency, fairness and incentives in assignment mechanisms. It is, therefore, natural to consider mechanisms that satisfy two of these three properties in their strongest notions, while trying to improve on the third dimension. In this paper, we are motivated by the following question: Is there a strategy-proof and envy-free random assignment mechanism more efficient than equal division? Our contributions in this paper are twofold. First, we further explore the incompatibility between efficiency and envy-freeness in the class of strategy-proof mechanisms. We define a new notion of efficiency that is weaker than ex-post efficiency and prove that any strategyproof and envy-free mechanism must sacrifice efficiency even in this very weak sense. Next, we introduce a new family of mechanisms called Pairwise Exchange mechanisms and make the surprising observation that strategy-proofness is equivalent to envy-freeness within this class.We characterize the set of all neutral and strategy-proof (and hence, also envy-free) mechanisms in this family and show that they admit a very simple linear representation.
We study the problem of assigning objects to agents in the presence of arbitrary linear constraints when agents are allowed to be indifferent between objects. Our main contribution is the generalization of the (Extended) Probabilistic Serial mechanism via a new mechanism called the Constrained Serial Rule. This mechanism is computationally efficient and maintains desirable efficiency and fairness properties namely constrained ordinal efficiency and envy-freeness among agents of the same type. Our mechanism is based on a linear programming approach that accounts for all constraints and provides a re-interpretation of the "bottleneck" set of agents that form a crucial part of the Extended Probabilistic Serial mechanism.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.