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DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2025.54

Reforming an Unfair Allocation by Exchanging Goods

Authors: Sheung Man Yuen, Ayumi Igarashi, Naoyuki Kamiyama, and Warut Suksompong

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 359, 36th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2025)

Abstract

Fairly allocating indivisible goods is a frequently occurring task in everyday life. Given an initial allocation of the goods, we consider the problem of reforming it via a sequence of exchanges to attain fairness in the form of envy-freeness up to one good (EF1). We present a vast array of results on the complexity of determining whether it is possible to reach an EF1 allocation from the initial allocation and, if so, the minimum number of exchanges required. In particular, we uncover several distinctions based on the number of agents involved and their utility functions. Furthermore, we derive essentially tight bounds on the worst-case number of exchanges needed to achieve EF1.

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Sheung Man Yuen, Ayumi Igarashi, Naoyuki Kamiyama, and Warut Suksompong. Reforming an Unfair Allocation by Exchanging Goods. In 36th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 359, pp. 54:1-54:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{yuen_et_al:LIPIcs.ISAAC.2025.54,
  author =	{Yuen, Sheung Man and Igarashi, Ayumi and Kamiyama, Naoyuki and Suksompong, Warut},
  title =	{{Reforming an Unfair Allocation by Exchanging Goods}},
  booktitle =	{36th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2025)},
  pages =	{54:1--54:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-408-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{359},
  editor =	{Chen, Ho-Lin and Hon, Wing-Kai and Tsai, Meng-Tsung},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2025.54},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-249626},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2025.54},
  annote =	{Keywords: fair division, indivisible goods, envy-freeness, exchanges}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2019.14

Almost Envy-Free Allocations with Connected Bundles

Authors: Vittorio Bilò, Ioannis Caragiannis, Michele Flammini, Ayumi Igarashi, Gianpiero Monaco, Dominik Peters, Cosimo Vinci, and William S. Zwicker

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 124, 10th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2019)

Abstract

We study the existence of allocations of indivisible goods that are envy-free up to one good (EF1), under the additional constraint that each bundle needs to be connected in an underlying item graph G. When the items are arranged in a path, we show that EF1 allocations are guaranteed to exist for arbitrary monotonic utility functions over bundles, provided that either there are at most four agents, or there are any number of agents but they all have identical utility functions. Our existence proofs are based on classical arguments from the divisible cake-cutting setting, and involve discrete analogues of cut-and-choose, of Stromquist's moving-knife protocol, and of the Su-Simmons argument based on Sperner's lemma. Sperner's lemma can also be used to show that on a path, an EF2 allocation exists for any number of agents. Except for the results using Sperner's lemma, all of our procedures can be implemented by efficient algorithms. Our positive results for paths imply the existence of connected EF1 or EF2 allocations whenever G is traceable, i.e., contains a Hamiltonian path. For the case of two agents, we completely characterize the class of graphs G that guarantee the existence of EF1 allocations as the class of graphs whose biconnected components are arranged in a path. This class is strictly larger than the class of traceable graphs; one can check in linear time whether a graph belongs to this class, and if so return an EF1 allocation.

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Vittorio Bilò, Ioannis Caragiannis, Michele Flammini, Ayumi Igarashi, Gianpiero Monaco, Dominik Peters, Cosimo Vinci, and William S. Zwicker. Almost Envy-Free Allocations with Connected Bundles. In 10th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2019). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 124, pp. 14:1-14:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2019)

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@InProceedings{bilo_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2019.14,
  author =	{Bil\`{o}, Vittorio and Caragiannis, Ioannis and Flammini, Michele and Igarashi, Ayumi and Monaco, Gianpiero and Peters, Dominik and Vinci, Cosimo and Zwicker, William S.},
  title =	{{Almost Envy-Free Allocations with Connected Bundles}},
  booktitle =	{10th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2019)},
  pages =	{14:1--14:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-095-8},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2019},
  volume =	{124},
  editor =	{Blum, Avrim},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2019.14},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-101078},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2019.14},
  annote =	{Keywords: Envy-free Division, Cake-cutting, Resource Allocation, Algorithmic Game Theory}
}

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Documents authored by Igarashi, Ayumi

Reforming an Unfair Allocation by Exchanging Goods

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Almost Envy-Free Allocations with Connected Bundles

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