Exploring Relations among Fairness Notions in Discrete Fair Division

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Garg, Jugal, Sharma, Eklavya
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Garg, Jugal
Sharma, Eklavya
author_facet Garg, Jugal
Sharma, Eklavya
contents Fair allocation of indivisible items among agents is a fundamental and extensively studied problem. However, fairness does not have a single universally accepted definition, leading to a variety of competing fairness notions. Some of these notions are considered stronger or more desirable, but they are also more difficult to guarantee. In this work, we examine 22 different notions of fairness and organize them into a hierarchy. Formally, we say that a fairness notion $F_1$ implies another notion $F_2$ if every $F_1$-fair allocation is also $F_2$-fair. We give a near-complete picture of implications among fairness notions: for almost every pair of notions, we either prove an implication or give a counterexample demonstrating that the implication does not hold. Although some of these results are already known, many are new. We examine multiple settings, including the allocation of goods, chores, and mixed manna. We believe this work clarifies the relative strengths and applicability of these notions, providing a foundation for future research in fair division. Moreover, we developed an inference engine to automate part of our work. It is available as a user-friendly web application and may have broader applications beyond fair division.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_02815
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Exploring Relations among Fairness Notions in Discrete Fair Division
Garg, Jugal
Sharma, Eklavya
Computer Science and Game Theory
Fair allocation of indivisible items among agents is a fundamental and extensively studied problem. However, fairness does not have a single universally accepted definition, leading to a variety of competing fairness notions. Some of these notions are considered stronger or more desirable, but they are also more difficult to guarantee. In this work, we examine 22 different notions of fairness and organize them into a hierarchy. Formally, we say that a fairness notion $F_1$ implies another notion $F_2$ if every $F_1$-fair allocation is also $F_2$-fair. We give a near-complete picture of implications among fairness notions: for almost every pair of notions, we either prove an implication or give a counterexample demonstrating that the implication does not hold. Although some of these results are already known, many are new. We examine multiple settings, including the allocation of goods, chores, and mixed manna. We believe this work clarifies the relative strengths and applicability of these notions, providing a foundation for future research in fair division. Moreover, we developed an inference engine to automate part of our work. It is available as a user-friendly web application and may have broader applications beyond fair division.
title Exploring Relations among Fairness Notions in Discrete Fair Division
topic Computer Science and Game Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.02815