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Truthful cake sharing

Author

Listed:
  • Xiaohui Bei

    (Nanyang Technological University)

  • Xinhang Lu

    (UNSW Sydney)

  • Warut Suksompong

    (National University of Singapore)

Abstract

The classic cake cutting problem concerns the fair allocation of a heterogeneous resource among interested agents. In this paper, we study a public goods variant of the problem, where instead of competing with one another for the cake, the agents all share the same subset of the cake which must be chosen subject to a length constraint. We focus on the design of truthful and fair mechanisms in the presence of strategic agents who have piecewise uniform (i.e., approval) utilities over the cake. On the one hand, we show that the leximin solution is excludably truthful (meaning it is truthful when it can block each agent from accessing parts of the cake that the agent does not claim to desire) and moreover maximizes the guaranteed normalized egalitarian welfare among all excludably truthful and position oblivious mechanisms. On the other hand, we demonstrate that the maximum Nash welfare solution is excludably truthful for two agents (as it coincides with leximin in that case) but not in general. We also provide an impossibility result on truthfulness when blocking is not allowed, and adapt notions of representation to our setting.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiaohui Bei & Xinhang Lu & Warut Suksompong, 2025. "Truthful cake sharing," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 64(1), pages 309-343, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sochwe:v:64:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s00355-023-01503-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s00355-023-01503-0
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Haris Aziz & Anna Bogomolnaia & Hervé Moulin, 2019. "Fair Mixing: the Case of Dichotomous Preferences," Post-Print hal-03047451, HAL.
    2. Xiaohui Bei & Guangda Huzhang & Warut Suksompong, 2020. "Truthful fair division without free disposal," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 55(3), pages 523-545, October.
    3. Stéphane Airiau & Haris Aziz & Ioannis Caragiannis & Justin Kruger & Jérôme Lang & Dominik Peters, 2023. "Portioning Using Ordinal Preferences: Fairness and Efficiency," Post-Print hal-03843084, HAL.
    4. Haris Aziz & Markus Brill & Vincent Conitzer & Edith Elkind & Rupert Freeman & Toby Walsh, 2017. "Justified representation in approval-based committee voting," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 48(2), pages 461-485, February.
    5. Sheung Man Yuen & Warut Suksompong, 2023. "Extending the Characterization of Maximum Nash Welfare," Papers 2301.03798, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2023.
    6. Yuen, Sheung Man & Suksompong, Warut, 2023. "Extending the characterization of maximum Nash welfare," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).
    7. Chen, Yiling & Lai, John K. & Parkes, David C. & Procaccia, Ariel D., 2013. "Truth, justice, and cake cutting," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 284-297.
    8. Erel Segal-Halevi & Balázs R. Sziklai, 2019. "Monotonicity and competitive equilibrium in cake-cutting," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 68(2), pages 363-401, September.
    9. Suksompong, Warut, 2023. "A characterization of maximum Nash welfare for indivisible goods," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    10. Anna Bogomolnaia & Herve Moulin, 2004. "Random Matching Under Dichotomous Preferences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(1), pages 257-279, January.
    11. Xiaohui Bei & Guangda Huzhang & Warut Suksompong, 2018. "Truthful Fair Division without Free Disposal," Papers 1804.06923, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2020.
    12. Brandl, Florian & Brandt, Felix & Greger, Matthias & Peters, Dominik & Stricker, Christian & Suksompong, Warut, 2022. "Funding public projects: A case for the Nash product rule," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
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