SAGT 2010: Algorithmic Game Theory pp 288-299 | Cite as

Truthful Fair Division

  • Elchanan Mossel
  • Omer Tamuz
Part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNCS, volume 6386)

Abstract

We address the problem of fair division, or cake cutting, with the goal of finding truthful mechanisms. In the case of a general measure space (“cake”) and non-atomic, additive individual preference measures - or utilities - we show that there exists a truthful “mechanism” which ensures that each of the k players gets at least 1/k of the cake. This mechanism also minimizes risk for truthful players. Furthermore, in the case where there exist at least two different measures we present a different truthful mechanism which ensures that each of the players gets more than 1/k of the cake.

We then turn our attention to partitions of indivisible goods with bounded utilities and a large number of goods. Here we provide similar mechanisms, but with slightly weaker guarantees. These guarantees converge to those obtained in the non-atomic case as the number of goods goes to infinity.

Keywords

Fair division cake cutting truthful mechanisms 

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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010

Authors and Affiliations

  • Elchanan Mossel
    • 1
    • 2
  • Omer Tamuz
    • 2
  1. 1.U.C. BerkeleyGreece
  2. 2.Weizmann InstituteIsrael

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