Equitable Cost Allocations via Primal-Dual-Type Algorithms

  • Authors:
  • Kamal Jain;Vijay V. Vazirani

  • Affiliations:
  • kamalj@microsoft.com;vazirani@cc.gatech.edu

  • Venue:
  • SIAM Journal on Computing
  • Year:
  • 2008

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Abstract

Perhaps the strongest notion of truth-revealing in a cost sharing mechanism is group strategyproofness. However, matters are not so clear-cut on fairness, and many different, sometimes even conflicting, notions of fairness have been proposed which have relevance in different situations. We present a large class of group strategyproof cost sharing methods, for submodular cost functions, satisfying a wide range of fairness criteria, thereby allowing the service provider to choose a method that best satisfies the notion of fairness that is most relevant to its application. Our class includes the Dutta-Ray egalitarian method as a special case. It also includes a new cost sharing method, which we call the opportunity egalitarian method.