Toss one’s cake, and eat it too: Partial divisions can improve social welfare in cake cutting

Orit Arzi, Yonatan Aumann, Yair Dombb

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

We consider the problem of fairly dividing a heterogeneous good (a.k.a. "cake") between a number of players with different tastes. In this setting, it is known that fairness requirements may result in a suboptimal division from the social welfare standpoint. Here we show that, in some cases, leaving some of the cake unallocated, and fairly dividing only the remainder of the cake may be socially preferable to any fair division of the entire cake.We study this phenomenon, providing asymptotically-tight bounds on the social improvement achievable by such partial divisions.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)933-954
Number of pages22
JournalSocial Choice and Welfare
Volume46
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2016

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015.

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