Best of Both Worlds Fairness under Entitlements

Haris Aziz (UNSW Sydney), Aditya Ganguly (UNSW Sydney), Evi Micha (University of Toronto)

Abstract

We consider probabilistic allocation of indivisible items to agents with additive valuations and weighted entitlements. We explore how far ex-ante and ex-post fairness properties can be achieved simultaneously. Our first result is that in contrast to the case of same entitlements, well-established adaptations of ex-ante envy-freeness and ex-post envy-freeness up to one item (EF1) to the case of entitlements are not compatible. We then present a polynomial-time algorithm that achieves weighted ex-ante envy-freeness and ex-post weighted envy-freeness up to 1 transfer. The outcome is ex-ante weighted envy-free for all utilities consistent with the underlying ordinal preferences but it is not Pareto optimal. We then present an alternative polynomial-time algorithm that satisfies Pareto optimality (both ex-ante and ex-post), ex-ante weighted envy-freeness and ex-post weighted proportionality up to one item.