Redistribution of VCG Payments in Assignment of Heterogeneous Objects

In this paper, we seek to design a Groves mechanism for assigning p heterogeneous objects among n competing agents (n > p) with unit demand, satisfying weak budget balance, individual rational- ity, and minimizing the budget imbalance. This calls for designing an appropriate rebate function. When the objects are identical, this prob- lem has been solved by Moulin [1] and Guo and Conitzer [2]. However, it remains an open problem to design such a rebate function when the ob- jects are heterogeneous. We propose a mechanism, HETERO and conjec- ture that HETERO is individually rational and weakly budget balanced. We provide empirical evidence for our conjecture through experimental simulations.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: Shanghai, China
• Authors: Sujit Gujar, Yadati Narahari
• Keywords: Budget Imbalance, Groves Mechanism