IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/gamebe/v87y2014icp305-321.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On fair division of a homogeneous good

Author

Listed:
  • Feige, Uriel
  • Tennenholtz, Moshe

Abstract

We consider the problem of dividing a homogeneous divisible good among n players. Each player holds a private non-negative utility function that depends only on the amount of the good that he receives. We define the fair share of a player P to be the average utility that a player could receive if all players had the same utility function as P. We present a randomized allocation mechanism in which every player has a dominant strategy for maximizing his expected utility. Every player that follows his dominant strategy is guaranteed to receive an expected utility of at least n/(2n−1) of his fair share. This is best possible in the sense that there is a collection of utility functions with respect to which no allocation mechanism can guarantee a larger fraction of the fair share. In interesting special cases our allocation mechanism does offer a larger fraction of the fair share.

Suggested Citation

  • Feige, Uriel & Tennenholtz, Moshe, 2014. "On fair division of a homogeneous good," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 305-321.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:87:y:2014:i:c:p:305-321
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2014.02.009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825614000402
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.geb.2014.02.009?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hervé Moulin, 2002. "The proportional random allocation of indivisible units," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 19(2), pages 381-413.
    2. Moulin, Herve, 1990. "Uniform externalities : Two axioms for fair allocation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 305-326, December.
    3. Gibbard, Allan, 1973. "Manipulation of Voting Schemes: A General Result," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(4), pages 587-601, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Erlanson, Albin & Szwagrzak, Karol, 2013. "Strategy-Proof Package Assignment," Working Papers 2013:43, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    2. Bock, Hans-Hermann & Day, William H. E. & McMorris, F. R., 1998. "Consensus rules for committee elections," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 219-232, May.
    3. Pablo Guillen & Róbert F. Veszteg, 2021. "Strategy-proofness in experimental matching markets," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(2), pages 650-668, June.
    4. Marco LiCalzi, 2022. "Bipartite choices," Decisions in Economics and Finance, Springer;Associazione per la Matematica, vol. 45(2), pages 551-568, December.
    5. Dietrich, Franz & List, Christian, 2007. "Strategy-Proof Judgment Aggregation," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(3), pages 269-300, November.
    6. John C. McCabe-Dansted & Arkadii Slinko, 2006. "Exploratory Analysis of Similarities Between Social Choice Rules," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 77-107, January.
    7. James Schummer, 1999. "Almost-dominant Strategy Implementation," Discussion Papers 1278, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    8. Aleskerov, Fuad & Karabekyan, Daniel & Sanver, M. Remzi & Yakuba, Vyacheslav, 2012. "On the manipulability of voting rules: The case of 4 and 5 alternatives," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 67-73.
    9. Lirong Xia, 2020. "How Likely Are Large Elections Tied?," Papers 2011.03791, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2021.
    10. Dindar, Hayrullah & Lainé, Jean, 2017. "Manipulation of single-winner large elections by vote pairing," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 105-107.
    11. Barbera, S. & Bossert, W. & Pattanaik, P.K., 2001. "Ranking Sets of Objects," Cahiers de recherche 2001-02, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    12. Brandt, Felix & Saile, Christian & Stricker, Christian, 2022. "Strategyproof social choice when preferences and outcomes may contain ties," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 202(C).
    13. Shinji Ohseto, 2006. "Characterizations of strategy-proof and fair mechanisms for allocating indivisible goods," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 29(1), pages 111-121, September.
    14. Souvik Roy & Soumyarup Sadhukhan, 2019. "A characterization of random min–max domains and its applications," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 68(4), pages 887-906, November.
    15. Samet, Dov & Schmeidler, David, 2003. "Between liberalism and democracy," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 110(2), pages 213-233, June.
    16. Mizukami, Hideki & Saijo, Tatsuyoshi & Wakayama, Takuma, 2003. "Strategy-Proof Sharing," Working Papers 1170, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
    17. Bruno Frey, 2011. "Tullock challenges: happiness, revolutions, and democracy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 148(3), pages 269-281, September.
    18. Donaldson, Jason & Piacentino, Giorgia & Malenko, Nadya, 2017. "Deadlock on the Board," CEPR Discussion Papers 12503, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Takamiya, Koji, 2001. "Coalition strategy-proofness and monotonicity in Shapley-Scarf housing markets," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 201-213, March.
    20. Freixas, Josep & Parker, Cameron, 2015. "Manipulation in games with multiple levels of output," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 144-151.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fairness; Fair share; Bin packing; Random allocations;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:87:y:2014:i:c:p:305-321. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622836 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.