On Scheduling Fees to Prevent Merging, Splitting and Transferring of Jobs

A deterministic server is shared by users with identical linear waiting costs, requesting jobs of arbitrary lengths. Shortest jobs are served first for efficiency. The server can monitor the length of a job, but not the identity of its user, thus merging, splitting or partially transferring jobs offer cooperative strategic opportunities. Can we design cash transfers to neutralize such manipulations? We prove that merge-proofness and split-proofness are not compatible, and that it is similarly impossible to prevent all transfers of jobs involving three agents or more. On the other hand, robustness against pair-wise transfers is feasible, and essentially characterize a one-dimensional set of scheduling methods. This line is borne by two outstanding methods, the merge-proof S+ and the split-proof S?. Splitproofness, unlike Mergeproofness, is not compatible with several simple tests of equity. Thus the two properties are far from equally demanding.

Split-Proof Probabilistic Scheduling

If shortest jobs are served first, splitting a long job into smaller jobs reported under different aliases can reduce the actual wait until completion. If longest jobs are served first, the dual maneuver of merging several jobs under a single reported identity is profitable. Both manipulations can be avoided if the scheduling order is random, and users care only about the expected wait until completion of their job. The Proportional rule stands out among rules immune to splitting and merging. It draws the job served last with probabilities proportional to size, then repeats among the remaining jobs. Among split-proof scheduling rules constructed in this recursive way, it is characterized by either one of the three following properties: an agent with a longer job incurs a longer delay; total expected delay is at most twice optimal delay; the worst expected delay of any single job is at most twice the smallest feasible worst delay. A similar result holds within the natural family of separable rules.

Appointment Games in Fixed-Route Traveling Salesman Problems and the Shapley Value

Starting from her home, a service provider visits several customers, following a predetermined route, and returns home after all customers are visited. The problem is to find a fair allocation of the total cost of this tour among the customers served. A transferable-utility cooperative game can be associated with this cost allocation problem. We introduce a new class of games, which we refer as the fixed-route traveling salesman games with appointments. We study the Shapley Value in this class and show that it is in the core. Our first characterization of the Shapley value involves a property which requires that sponsors do not benefit from mergers, or splitting into a set of sponsors. Our second theorem involves a property which requires that the cost shares of two sponsors who get connected are equally effected. We also show that except for our second theorem, none of our results for appointment games extend to the class of routing games (Potters et al, 1992).fixed-route traveling salesman games, routing games, appointment games, the Shapley value, the core, transferable-utility games, merging and splitting proofness, equal impact, networks, cost allocation.

Characterizing the Shapley Value in Fixed-Route Traveling Salesman Problems with Appointments

Starting from her home, a service provider visits several customers, following a predetermined route, and returns home after all customers are visited. The problem is to ?nd a fair allocation of the total cost of this tour among the customers served. A transferable-utility cooperative game can be associated with this cost allocation problem. We intro- duce a new class of games, which we refer as the fixed-route traveling salesman games with appointments. We characterize the Shapley Value in this class using a property which requires that sponsors do not bene?t from mergers, or splitting into a set of sponsors.Fixed-route travelling salesman games, routing games, appointment games, the Shapley value, the core, transferable-utility games, merging and splitting proofness, networks, cost allocation

Optimal Mechanisms for Single Machine Scheduling

We study the design of optimal mechanisms in a setting where job-agents compete for being processed by a service provider that can handle one job at a time. Each job has a processing time and incurs a waiting cost. Jobs need to be compensated for waiting. We consider two models, one where only the waiting costs of jobs are private information (1-d), and another where both waiting costs and processing times are private (2-d). Probability distributions represent the public common belief about private information. We consider discrete and continuous distributions. In this setting, an optimal mechanism minimizes the total expected expenses to compensate all jobs, while it has to be Bayes-Nash incentive compatible. We derive closed formulae for the optimal mechanism in the 1-d case and show that it is efficient for symmetric jobs. For non-symmetric jobs, we show that efficient mechanisms perform arbitrarily bad. For the 2-d discrete case, we prove that the optimal mechanism in general does not even satisfy IIA, the `independent of irrelevant alternatives'' condition. Hence any attempt along the lines of the classical auction setting is doomed to fail. In the 2-d discrete case, we also show that the optimal mechanism is not even efficient for symmetric agents.operations research and management science;

Stability and fairness in sequencing games: optimistic approach and pessimistic scenarios

Sequencing deals with the problem of assigning slots to agents who are waiting for a service. We study sequencing problems as coalition form games defined in optimistic and pessimistic scenarios. Each agent's level of utility is his Shapley value payoff from the corresponding coalition form game. First, we show that while the core of the optimistic game is always empty, the Shapley value of the pessimistic game is an allocation in its core. Second, we impose the "generalized welfare lower bound" (GWLB) that ex-ante guarantees each agent a minimum level of utility. One of many application of GWLB is the "expected costs bound". It guarantees each agent his expected cost when all arrival orders are equally likely. We prove that the Shapley value payoffs (in both optimistic and pessimistic scenarios) satisfy GWLB if and only if it satisfies the expected costs bound (ECB)

Characterization of envy free solutions for queuing problems

Cataloged from PDF version of article.In this study we are working on queuing problems. In our model a solution to a queuing problem is an ordering of agents and a transfer vector where the sum of the transfers of agents is equal to zero. Hence a queuing problem is a double, where we have a finite set of agents and a profile of payoff functions of agents which represent their preferences on their orderings and transfers. We are assuming that the payoff functions of agents are quasi-linear on transfers. Our main aim is to find envy free solutions for queuing problems. Since payoff functions of agents are quasi-linear envy freeness implies Pareto efficiency. For problems where there are less than five agents, we show that the set of envy free solutions is not empty and we are able to characterize the envy free solutions. We conjecture that our results may be extended to general case similar to our extension from three person case to four person case. When we assume that a queuing problem satisfies order preservation property we are able to characterize envy free solutions with a solution concept that we introduce in this study.Esmerok, İbrahim BarışM.S