Searcharxiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 2301.01367

The Price of Anarchy of the Asymmetric One-Sided Allocation Problem

Sissi Jiang·Ndiame Ndiaye·Adrian Vetta·Eggie Wu
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

We study fair mechanisms for the (asymmetric) one-sided allocation problem with m items and n multi-unit demand agents with additive, unit-sum valuations. The symmetric case (m=n), the one-sided matching problem, has been studied extensively for the class of unit demand agents, in particular with respect to the folklore Random Priority mechanism and the Probabilistic Serial mechanism, introduced by Bogomolnaia and Moulin. Under the assumption of unit-sum valuation functions, Christodoulou et al. proved that the price of anarchy is $\Theta(\sqrt{n})$ in the one-sided matching problem for both the Random Priority and Probabilistic Serial mechanisms. Whilst both Random Priority and Probabilistic Serial are ordinal mechanisms, these approximation guarantees are the best possible even for the broader class of cardinal mechanisms. To extend these results to the general setting there are two technical obstacles. One, asymmetry ($m\neq n$) is problematic especially when the number of items is much greater than the number of items. Two, it is necessary to study multi-unit demand agents rather than simply unit demand agents. Our approach is to study a cardinal mechanism variant of Probabilistic Serial, which we call Cardinal Probabilistic Serial. We present structural theorems for this mechanism and use them to obtain bounds on the price of anarchy. Our first main result is an upper bound of $O(\sqrt{n}\cdot \log m)$ on the price of anarchy for the asymmetric one-sided allocation problem with multi-unit demand agents. This upper bound applies to Probabilistic Serial as well and there is a complementary lower bound of $\Omega(\sqrt{n})$ for any fair mechanism. Our second main result is that the price of anarchy degrades with the number of items. Specifically, a logarithmic dependence on the number of items is necessary for both mechanisms.

Explore related subjects

cs.GTmath.OC

Keep this discovery

BibTeXRIS

Sissi Jiang, Ndiame Ndiaye, Adrian Vetta, Eggie Wu. 2023-01-03. The Price of Anarchy of the Asymmetric One-Sided Allocation Problem. https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.01367

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

MMS Allocation for Chores with Online Agent Arrivals

We study the fair allocation of $m$ indivisible chores to $n$ agents with subadditive cost functions arriving online in an arbitrary order. Upon an agent's arrival, we are informed of her cost function and must irrevocably assign her a set of chores. We focus on the Maximin Share (MMS) fairness notion and aim to compute an allocation in which all items are assigned, and no agent incurs a cost more than $\alpha$ times her MMS. Without any prior information about the instance (other than $n$ and $m$), we design an algorithm with a competitive ratio of $O(\min\{n, k\log^{1+\epsilon}k, \log m\})$ for any constant $\epsilon > 0$, where $k$ denotes the number of cost function types. Our bound matches the best known offline approximation guarantees for MMS under subadditive costs and is nearly optimal with respect to all three parameters: we show that even for binary additive cost functions, no online algorithm can achieve a competitive ratio of $o(\min\{n, k\log k, \log m\})$. We then consider the setting in which the $k$ cost function types are known in advance (though the realized types of arriving agents are not). For additive cost functions, we provide an algorithm with a competitive ratio of $O(\min\{\log k, \log(kn)/\log\log(kn)\})$, and show that constant-competitive algorithms do not exist for general $k$, even for the binary additive setting. For binary additive functions when $k \le n$, we propose a $3$-competitive algorithm and establish a lower bound of $2$.

cs.GT↗
arXiv2026

Truncated Noisy Best-Response Algorithms: Toward Game Theoretic Learning with Safety Guarantees

We consider a game theoretic approach to solve multi-agent coordination problems with submodular maximization objectives. It is known for such problems that the Nash equilibria for the corresponding game are always within 50% of the optimal, but that the equilibria which achieve this worst-case bound are not stable. To exploit this instability, we propose a family of algorithms which we call Truncated Noisy Best-Response (TNBR) Algorithms. These algorithms are flexibly characterized by agents asynchronously and stochastically selecting actions from a neighbourhood of their best response payoffs. We compute bounds on the recurrent classes of TNBR algorithms' associated Markov chains. Our bounds fall into two categories: first, "Performance" bounds ensure that TNBR algorithms always have a high-value recurrent state; second, "Safety" bounds ensure that TNBR algorithms never have arbitrarily-bad recurrent states. Furthermore, these two types of bounds are linked by a waterbed-like effect: every game with a poor Safety guarantee necessarily has a favorable Performance guarantee.

cs.GT↗
arXiv2026

Existence of the Core in Approval-Based Committee Elections

We settle the main open question in the theory of approval-based multi-winner elections: we show that there always exists a committee in the core. The core is a stability and group fairness concept. The proof introduces a new voting rule that optimizes an entropy-like objective function over committees and payment systems. All local optima of this objective function lie in the core, which implies that a core committee can be found in polynomial time.

cs.GT↗