Papers for

resource allocators

Papers whose findings have a practical use for this group, as judged from the abstract. Open a paper to read what it means in practice.

Envy-free sharing of indivisible goods guaranteed with perfect complements

Envy-Free Allocation of Indivisible Goods under Leontief Preferences

Abstract: Envy-freeness is a fundamental notion of fairness in the allocation of indivisible goods. In this paper, we study envy-free allocation under Leontief preferences, which model perfect complements. Although Leontief preferences have been extensively studied in the context of allocating divisible goods and market equilibria, they have received comparatively little attention for the allocation of indivisible goods. We show that, unlike additive valuations in cardinal preferences, an envy-free allocation always exists for Leontief preferences when there are at least two goods. In contrast, envy-free allocations may fail to exist when there is a single good, however it can be decided in polynomial time. We next study the problem of computing a welfare-maximizing envy-free allocation. We prove that this problem is NP-hard in general, whereas it is polynomial-time solvable when there is only a single good or agents have identical demands. Finally, we investigate the parameterized complexity of this problem.

Wed 23 SeptComputer Science and Game TheoryComputational Complexity
The gist
Fair division means giving items to people so no one feels jealous of another’s share. This paper studies a type of preference where goods must be combined in fixed proportions, called Leontief preferences, often seen as perfect complements. The authors show that if there are at least two goods, it is always possible to divide them fairly without envy. They also explore how hard it is to find the fairest such division and identify scenarios where this task is easier or harder. Their work helps understand fairness in situations where items cannot be split and must be combined in specific ways.
Open → 2609.28308v1