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A Global Characterization of Envy-Free Truthful Scheduling of Two Tasks

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Internet and Network Economics (WINE 2011)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 7090))

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Abstract

We study envy-free and truthful mechanisms for domains with additive valuations, like the ones that arise in scheduling on unrelated machines. We investigate the allocation functions that are both weakly monotone (truthful) and locally efficient (envy-free), in the case of only two tasks, but many players. We show that the only allocation functions that satisfy both conditions are affine minimizers, with strong restrictions on the parameters of the affine minimizer. As a further result, we provide a common payment function, i.e., a single mechanism that is both truthful and envy-free.

For additive combinatorial auctions our approach leads us (only) to a non- affine maximizer similar to the counterexample of Lavi et al. [26]. Thus our result demonstrates the inherent difference between the scheduling and the auctions domain, and inspires new questions related to the classic problem of characterizing truthfulness in additive domains.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK

    George Christodoulou

  2. Department of Informatics, Goethe University, Frankfurt M., Germany

    Annamária Kovács

Authors
  1. George Christodoulou
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  2. Annamária Kovács
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. GECAD, Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto, Portugal

    Ning Chen

  2. School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, SPMS-MAS-03-01, Nanyang Technological University, 21 Nanyang Link, 637371, Singapore

    Edith Elkind

  3. Department of Informatics, University of Athens, Greece

    Elias Koutsoupias

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Christodoulou, G., Kovács, A. (2011). A Global Characterization of Envy-Free Truthful Scheduling of Two Tasks. In: Chen, N., Elkind, E., Koutsoupias, E. (eds) Internet and Network Economics. WINE 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7090. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-25510-6_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-25510-6_8

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-25509-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-25510-6

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