Abstract
The undercut procedure was presented by Brams et al. (Soc Choice Welf 39:615–631, 2012) as a procedure for identifying an envy-free allocation when agents have preferences over sets of objects. We point out some shortcomings of the undercut procedure. We then simplify the undercut procedure of Brams et al. and show that it works under more general conditions where agents may express indifference between objects and they may not necessarily have responsive preferences over sets of objects. Finally, we show that the procedure works even if agents have unequal claims.
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Acknowledgments
A preliminary version of this paper was accepted as an extended abstract at AAMAS 2014 (13th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems). The author thanks Steven Brams, Christian Klamler, and the anonymous reviewers of AAMAS 2014 as well as Social Choice and Welfare for their helpful comments. He also thanks Toby Walsh for pointing out the article by Brams et al. (2012). This material is based upon work supported by the Australian Government’s Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, the Australian Research Council, the Asian Office of Aerospace Research and Development through grant AOARD-124056.
