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Fair allocation of indivisible goods and chores

Published: 01 April 2022 Publication History

Abstract

We consider the problem of fairly dividing a set of indivisible items. Much of the fair division literature assumes that the items are “goods” that yield positive utility for the agents. There is also some work in which the items are “chores” that yield negative utility for the agents. In this paper, we consider a more general scenario in which an agent may have positive or negative utility for each item. This framework captures, e.g., fair task assignment, where agents can experience both positive and negative utility for each task. We demonstrate that whereas some of the positive axiomatic and computational results extend to this more general setting, others do not. We present several new and efficient algorithms for finding fair allocations in this general setting. We also point out several gaps in the literature regarding the existence of allocations that satisfy certain fairness and efficiency properties and examine the complexity of computing such allocations.

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        Published In

        cover image Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems
        Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems  Volume 36, Issue 1
        Apr 2022
        875 pages

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        Kluwer Academic Publishers

        United States

        Publication History

        Published: 01 April 2022
        Accepted: 11 September 2021

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        • (2024)Near-Optimal Online Resource Allocation in the Random-Order ModelProceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems10.5555/3635637.3663113(2219-2221)Online publication date: 6-May-2024
        • (2024)Allocating Contiguous Blocks of Indivisible Chores Fairly: RevisitedProceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems10.5555/3635637.3663042(1800-1808)Online publication date: 6-May-2024
        • (2024)Weighted Proportional Allocations of Indivisible Goods and Chores: Insights via MatchingsProceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems10.5555/3635637.3662931(780-788)Online publication date: 6-May-2024
        • (2024)Weighted Fairness Notions for Indivisible Items RevisitedACM Transactions on Economics and Computation10.1145/366579912:3(1-45)Online publication date: 6-Sep-2024
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