Fair Cake-Cutting Algorithms with Real Land-Value Data

Fair division of land is an important practical problem that is commonly handled either by hiring assessors or by selling and dividing the proceeds. A third way to divide land fairly is via algorithms for fair cake-cutting. However, the current theory of fair cake-cutting is not yet ready to optimally share a plot of land and such algorithms are seldom used in practical land-division. We attempt to narrow the gap between theory and practice by performing extensive simulations of a classic cake-cutting algorithm on real land-value data. We improve the practical performance of this algorithm using heuristics we developed, and show their e ectiveness on real land-value maps compared to actual assessment and sale data on various performance metrics. The cakecutting algorithms perform better in most metrics. We further examined the cake cutting algorithm with respect to strategic gain of an agent relative to a truthful agent. The strategic gain was found to be insigni cant e ect in cake-cutting algorithms.