Optimal Metric Distortion for Matching on the Line

Fuente: arXiv
Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Hauptverfasser: Filos-Ratsikas, Aris, Gkatzelis, Vasilis, Latifian, Mohamad, Rewinski, Emma, Voudouris, Alexandros A.
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
_version_ 1866929693508239360
author Filos-Ratsikas, Aris
Gkatzelis, Vasilis
Latifian, Mohamad
Rewinski, Emma
Voudouris, Alexandros A.
author_facet Filos-Ratsikas, Aris
Gkatzelis, Vasilis
Latifian, Mohamad
Rewinski, Emma
Voudouris, Alexandros A.
contents We study the distortion of one-sided and two-sided matching problems on the line. In the one-sided case, $n$ agents need to be matched to $n$ items, and each agent's cost in a matching is their distance from the item they were matched to. We propose an algorithm that is provided only with ordinal information regarding the agents' preferences (each agent's ranking of the items from most- to least-preferred) and returns a matching aiming to minimize the social cost with respect to the agents' true (cardinal) costs. We prove that our algorithm simultaneously achieves the best-possible approximation of $3$ (known as distortion) with respect to a variety of social cost measures which include the utilitarian and egalitarian social cost. In the two-sided case, where the agents need be matched to $n$ other agents and both sides report their ordinal preferences over each other, we show that it is always possible to compute an optimal matching. In fact, we show that this optimal matching can be achieved using even less information, and we provide bounds regarding the sufficient number of queries.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_00149
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Optimal Metric Distortion for Matching on the Line
Filos-Ratsikas, Aris
Gkatzelis, Vasilis
Latifian, Mohamad
Rewinski, Emma
Voudouris, Alexandros A.
Computer Science and Game Theory
We study the distortion of one-sided and two-sided matching problems on the line. In the one-sided case, $n$ agents need to be matched to $n$ items, and each agent's cost in a matching is their distance from the item they were matched to. We propose an algorithm that is provided only with ordinal information regarding the agents' preferences (each agent's ranking of the items from most- to least-preferred) and returns a matching aiming to minimize the social cost with respect to the agents' true (cardinal) costs. We prove that our algorithm simultaneously achieves the best-possible approximation of $3$ (known as distortion) with respect to a variety of social cost measures which include the utilitarian and egalitarian social cost. In the two-sided case, where the agents need be matched to $n$ other agents and both sides report their ordinal preferences over each other, we show that it is always possible to compute an optimal matching. In fact, we show that this optimal matching can be achieved using even less information, and we provide bounds regarding the sufficient number of queries.
title Optimal Metric Distortion for Matching on the Line
topic Computer Science and Game Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.00149