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Large conferences such as NeurIPS and AAAI serve as crossroads of various AI fields, since they attract submissions from a vast number of communities. However, in some cases, this has resulted in a poor reviewing experience for some communities, whose submissions get assigned to less qualified reviewers outside of their communities. An often-advocated solution is to break up any such large conference into smaller conferences, but this can lead to isolation of communities and harm interdisciplinary research. We tackle this challenge by introducing a notion of group fairness, called the core, which requires that every possible community (subset of researchers) to be treated in a way that prevents them from unilaterally benefiting by withdrawing from a large conference. We study a simple peer review model, prove that it always admits a reviewing assignment in the core, and design an efficient algorithm to find one such assignment. We use real data from CVPR and ICLR conferences to compare our algorithm to existing reviewing assignment algorithms on a number of metrics., Comment: A preliminary version appeared at NeurIPS 2023

We consider the problem of fair allocation of indivisible items with subsidies when agents have weighted entitlements. After highlighting several important differences from the unweighted case, we present several results concerning weighted envy-freeability including general characterizations, algorithms for achieving and testing weighted envy-freeability, lower and upper bounds of the amount of subsidies for envy-freeable allocations, and algorithms for achieving weighted envy-freeability along with other properties., Comment: 26 pages, 1 Table, 1 Figure

We study the problem of assigning agents to the vertices of a graph such that no pair of neighbors can benefit from swapping assignments -- a property we term neighborhood stability. We further assume that agents' utilities are based solely on their preferences over the assignees of adjacent vertices and that those preferences are binary. Having shown that even this very restricted setting does not guarantee neighborhood stable assignments, we focus on special cases that provide such guarantees. We show that when the graph is a cycle or a path, a neighborhood stable assignment always exists for any preference profile. Furthermore, we give a general condition under which neighborhood stable assignments always exist. For each of these results, we give a polynomial-time algorithm to compute a neighborhood stable assignment.

We study committee voting rules under ranked preferences, which map the voters' preference relations to a subset of the alternatives of predefined size. In this setting, the compatibility between proportional representation and committee monotonicity is a fundamental open problem that has been mentioned in several works. We design a new multi-winner voting rule called the Solid Coalition Refinement (SCR) Rule that simultaneously satisfies committee monotonicity and Dummett's PSC as well as one of its variants called inclusion PSC. This is the first rule known to satisfy both of these properties. Moreover, we show that this is effectively the best that we can hope for as other fairness notions adapted from approval voting such as Rank-JR and Rank-PJR+ are incompatible with committee monotonicity.

Understanding the agent's learning process, particularly the factors that contribute to its success or failure post-training, is crucial for comprehending the rationale behind the agent's decision-making process. Prior methods clarify the learning process by creating a structural causal model (SCM) or visually representing the distribution of value functions. Nevertheless, these approaches have constraints as they exclusively function in 2D-environments or with uncomplicated transition dynamics. Understanding the agent's learning process in complicated environments or tasks is more challenging. In this paper, we propose REVEAL-IT, a novel framework for explaining the learning process of an agent in complex environments. Initially, we visualize the policy structure and the agent's learning process for various training tasks. By visualizing these findings, we can understand how much a particular training task or stage affects the agent's performance in test. Then, a GNN-based explainer learns to highlight the most important section of the policy, providing a more clear and robust explanation of the agent's learning process. The experiments demonstrate that explanations derived from this framework can effectively help in the optimization of the training tasks, resulting in improved learning efficiency and final performance.

In pursuit of participatory budgeting (PB) outcomes with broader fairness guarantees, we initiate the study of lotteries over discrete PB outcomes. As the projects have heterogeneous costs, the amount spent may not be equal ex ante and ex post. To address this, we develop a technique to bound the amount by which the ex-post spend differs from the ex-ante spend -- the property is termed budget balanced up to one project (BB1). With respect to fairness, we take a best-of-both-worlds perspective, seeking outcomes that are both ex-ante and ex-post fair. Towards this goal, we initiate a study of ex-ante fairness properties in PB, including Individual Fair Share (IFS), Unanimous Fair Share (UFS) and their stronger variants, as well as Group Fair Share (GFS). We show several incompatibility results between these ex-ante fairness notions and existing ex-post concepts based on justified representation. One of our main contributions is a randomized algorithm which simultaneously satisfies ex-ante Strong UFS, ex-post full justified representation (FJR) and ex-post BB1 for PB with binary utilities., Comment: Appears in the 38th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), 2024

We study the envy-free house allocation problem when agents have uncertain preferences over items and consider several well-studied preference uncertainty models. The central problem that we focus on is computing an allocation that has the highest probability of being envy-free. We show that each model leads to a distinct set of algorithmic and complexity results, including detailed results on (in-)approximability. En route, we consider two related problems of checking whether there exists an allocation that is possibly or necessarily envy-free. We give a complete picture of the computational complexity of these two problems for all the uncertainty models we consider., Comment: To appear in the proceeding of AAAI2024

We consider the problem of locating a facility to serve a set of agents located along a line. The Nash welfare objective function, defined as the product of the agents' utilities, is known to provide a compromise between fairness and efficiency in resource allocation problems. We apply this welfare notion to the facility location problem, converting individual costs to utilities and analyzing the facility placement that maximizes the Nash welfare. We give a polynomial-time approximation algorithm to compute this facility location, and prove results suggesting that it achieves a good balance of fairness and efficiency. Finally, we take a mechanism design perspective and propose a strategy-proof mechanism with a bounded approximation ratio for Nash welfare.

We study deviations by a group of agents in the three main types of matching markets: the house allocation, the marriage, and the roommates models. For a given instance, we call a matching $k$-stable if no other matching exists that is more beneficial to at least $k$ out of the $n$ agents. The concept generalizes the recently studied majority stability. We prove that whereas the verification of $k$-stability for a given matching is polynomial-time solvable in all three models, the complexity of deciding whether a $k$-stable matching exists depends on $\frac{k}{n}$ and is characteristic to each model., Comment: SAGT 2023

In recent years, there has been a surge in effort to formalize notions of fairness in machine learning. We focus on centroid clustering--one of the fundamental tasks in unsupervised machine learning. We propose a new axiom ``proportionally representative fairness'' (PRF) that is designed for clustering problems where the selection of centroids reflects the distribution of data points and how tightly they are clustered together. Our fairness concept is not satisfied by existing fair clustering algorithms. We design efficient algorithms to achieve PRF both for unconstrained and discrete clustering problems. Our algorithm for the unconstrained setting is also the first known polynomial-time approximation algorithm for the well-studied Proportional Fairness (PF) axiom. Our algorithm for the discrete setting also matches the best known approximation factor for PF.

The best-of-both-worlds paradigm advocates an approach that achieves desirable properties both ex-ante and ex-post. We launch a best-of-both-worlds fairness perspective for the important social choice setting of approval-based committee voting. To this end, we initiate work on ex-ante proportional representation properties in this domain and formalize a hierarchy of notions including Individual Fair Share (IFS), Unanimous Fair Share (UFS), Group Fair Share (GFS), and their stronger variants. We establish their compatibility with well-studied ex-post concepts such as extended justified representation (EJR) and fully justified representation (FJR). Our first main result is a polynomial-time algorithm that simultaneously satisfies ex-post EJR, ex-ante GFS and ex-ante Strong UFS. Subsequently, we strengthen our ex-post guarantee to FJR and present an algorithm that outputs a lottery which is ex-post FJR and ex-ante Strong UFS, but does not run in polynomial time., Comment: Appears in the 19th Conference on Web and Internet Economics (WINE), 2023

Selection under category or diversity constraints is a ubiquitous and widely-applicable problem that is encountered in immigration, school choice, hiring, and healthcare rationing. These diversity constraints are typically represented by minimum and maximum quotas on various categories or types. We undertake a detailed comparative study of applicant selection algorithms with respect to the diversity goals.

We consider the obnoxious facility location problem (in which agents prefer the facility location to be far from them) and propose a hierarchy of distance-based proportional fairness concepts for the problem. These fairness axioms ensure that groups of agents at the same location are guaranteed to be a distance from the facility proportional to their group size. We consider deterministic and randomized mechanisms, and compute tight bounds on the price of proportional fairness. In the deterministic setting, we show that our proportional fairness axioms are incompatible with strategyproofness, and prove asymptotically tight $\epsilon$-price of anarchy and stability bounds for proportionally fair welfare-optimal mechanisms. In the randomized setting, we identify proportionally fair and strategyproof mechanisms that give an expected welfare within a constant factor of the optimal welfare. Finally, we prove existence results for two extensions to our model., Comment: Appears in the 23rd International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS), 2024

We consider a voting scenario in which the resource to be voted upon may consist of both indivisible and divisible goods. This setting generalizes both the well-studied model of multiwinner voting and the recently introduced model of cake sharing. Under approval votes, we propose two variants of the extended justified representation (EJR) notion from multiwinner voting, a stronger one called EJR for mixed goods (EJR-M) and a weaker one called EJR up to 1 (EJR-1). We extend three multiwinner voting rules to our setting -- GreedyEJR, the method of equal shares (MES), and proportional approval voting (PAV) -- and show that while all three generalizations satisfy EJR-1, only the first one provides EJR-M. In addition, we derive tight bounds on the proportionality degree implied by EJR-M and EJR-1, and investigate the proportionality degree of our proposed rules., Comment: Appears in the 37th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), 2023

We consider the problem of fair allocation of indivisible chores under additive valuations. We assume that the chores are divided into two types and under this scenario, we present several results. Our first result is a new characterization of Pareto optimal allocations in our setting, and a polynomial-time algorithm to compute an envy-free up to one item (EF1) and Pareto optimal allocation. We then turn to the question of whether we can achieve a stronger fairness concept called envy-free up any item (EFX). We present a polynomial-time algorithm that returns an EFX allocation. Finally, we show that for our setting, it can be checked in polynomial time whether an envy-free allocation exists or not.

Allocating resources to individuals in a fair manner has been a topic of interest since ancient times, with most of the early mathematical work on the problem focusing on resources that are infinitely divisible. Over the last decade, there has been a surge of papers studying computational questions regarding the indivisible case, for which exact fairness notions such as envy-freeness and proportionality are hard to satisfy. One main theme in the recent research agenda is to investigate the extent to which their relaxations, like maximin share fairness (MMS) and envy-freeness up to any good (EFX), can be achieved. In this survey, we present a comprehensive review of the recent progress made in the related literature by highlighting different ways to relax fairness notions, common algorithm design techniques, and the most interesting questions for future research., Comment: This survey unifies and extends preliminary versions that appeared in IJCAI 2022 (arXiv:2202.07551) and SIGecom Exchanges (arXiv:2202.08713). It has been accepted for publication to the journal of Artificial Intelligence (AIJ)

Task allocation using a team or coalition of robots is one of the most important problems in robotics, computer science, operational research, and artificial intelligence. In recent work, research has focused on handling complex objectives and feasibility constraints amongst other variations of the multi-robot task allocation problem. There are many examples of important research progress in these directions. We present a general formulation of the task allocation problem that generalizes several versions that are well-studied. Our formulation includes the states of robots, tasks, and the surrounding environment in which they operate. We describe how the problem can vary depending on the feasibility constraints, objective functions, and the level of dynamically changing information. In addition, we discuss existing solution approaches for the problem including optimization-based approaches, and market-based approaches., Comment: Accepted for publication in the journal Current Robotics Reports

We formalize a framework for coordinating funding and selecting projects, the costs of which are shared among agents with quasi-linear utility functions and individual budgets. Our model contains the classical discrete participatory budgeting model as a special case, while capturing other useful scenarios. We propose several important axioms and objectives and study how well they can be simultaneously satisfied. We show that whereas welfare maximization admits an FPTAS, welfare maximization subject to a natural and very weak participation requirement leads to a strong inapproximability. This result is bypassed if we consider some natural restricted valuations, namely laminar single-minded valuations and symmetric valuations. Our analysis for the former restriction leads to the discovery of a new class of tractable instances for the Set Union Knapsack problem, a classical problem in combinatorial optimization., Comment: In this version, we include results regarding single minded valuations. We have also corrected a bug in the proof of Lemma 1

Proportionality is an attractive fairness concept that has been applied to a range of problems including the facility location problem, a classic problem in social choice. In our work, we propose a concept called Strong Proportionality, which ensures that when there are two groups of agents at different locations, both groups incur the same total cost. We show that although Strong Proportionality is a well-motivated and basic axiom, there is no deterministic strategyproof mechanism satisfying the property. We then identify a randomized mechanism called Random Rank (which uniformly selects a number $k$ between $1$ to $n$ and locates the facility at the $k$'th highest agent location) which satisfies Strong Proportionality in expectation. Our main theorem characterizes Random Rank as the unique mechanism that achieves universal truthfulness, universal anonymity, and Strong Proportionality in expectation among all randomized mechanisms. Finally, we show via the AverageOrRandomRank mechanism that even stronger ex-post fairness guarantees can be achieved by weakening universal truthfulness to strategyproofness in expectation.

The theory of algorithmic fair allocation is within the center of multi-agent systems and economics in the last decade due to its industrial and social importance. At a high level, the problem is to assign a set of items that are either goods or chores to a set of agents so that every agent is happy with what she obtains. Particularly, in this survey, we focus on indivisible items, for which absolute fairness such as envy-freeness and proportionality cannot be guaranteed. One main theme in the recent research agenda is about designing algorithms that approximately achieve the fairness criteria. We aim at presenting a comprehensive survey of recent progresses through the prism of algorithms, highlighting the ways to relax fairness notions and common techniques to design algorithms, as well as the most interesting questions for future research.

In the sport of cricket, the side that wins the toss and has the first choice to bat or bowl can have an unfair or a critical advantage. The issue has been discussed by International Cricket Council committees, as well as several cricket experts. In this article, I outline a method to make the toss fair in cricket. The method is based on ideas from the academic fields of game theory and fair division.

The Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem states that no unanimous and non-dictatorial voting rule is strategyproof. We revisit voting rules and consider a weaker notion of strategyproofness called not obvious manipulability that was proposed by Troyan and Morrill (2020). We identify several classes of voting rules that satisfy this notion. We also show that several voting rules including k-approval fail to satisfy this property. We characterize conditions under which voting rules are obviously manipulable. One of our insights is that certain rules are obviously manipulable when the number of alternatives is relatively large compared to the number of voters. In contrast to the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem, many of the rules we examined are not obviously manipulable. This reflects the relatively easier satisfiability of the notion and the zero information assumption of not obvious manipulability, as opposed to the perfect information assumption of strategyproofness. We also present algorithmic results for computing obvious manipulations and report on experiments.

We focus on a simple, one-dimensional collective decision problem (often referred to as the facility location problem) and explore issues of strategyproofness and proportional fairness. We present several characterization results for mechanisms that satisfy strategyproofness and varying levels of proportional fairness. We also characterize one of the mechanisms as the unique equilibrium outcome for any mechanism that satisfies natural fairness and monotonicity properties. Finally, we identify strategyproof and proportionally fair mechanisms that provide the best welfare-optimal approximation among all mechanisms that satisfy the corresponding fairness axiom.

We study a fair allocation problem of indivisible items under additive externalities in which each agent also receives values from items that are assigned to other agents. We propose several new fairness concepts. We extend the well-studied envy-freeness up to one item (EF1) and envy-freeness up to any item (EFX) to this setting, and we propose a new fairness concept called general fair share (GFS). We undertake a detailed study and present algorithms for finding fair allocations.

We consider a setting in which agents are allocated land plots and they have additive preferences over which plot they get and who their neighbor is. Strategyproofness, Pareto optimality, and individual rationality are three fundamental properties in economic design. We present two impossibility results showing that the three properties are incompatible in this context.

Multi-robot task allocation is one of the most fundamental classes of problems in robotics and is crucial for various real-world robotic applications such as search, rescue and area exploration. We consider the Single-Task robots and Multi-Robot tasks Instantaneous Assignment (ST-MR-IA) setting where each task requires at least a certain number of robots and each robot can work on at most one task and incurs an operational cost for each task. Our aim is to consider a natural computational problem of allocating robots to complete the maximum number of tasks subject to budget constraints. We consider budget constraints of three different kinds: (1) total budget, (2) task budget, and (3) robot budget. We provide a detailed complexity analysis including results on approximations as well as polynomial-time algorithms for the general setting and important restricted settings., Comment: AAMAS 2021

Algorithms for exchange of kidneys is one of the key successful applications in market design, artificial intelligence, and operations research. Potent immunosuppressant drugs suppress the body's ability to reject a transplanted organ up to the point that a transplant across blood- or tissue-type incompatibility becomes possible. In contrast to the standard kidney exchange problem, we consider a setting that also involves the decision about which recipients receive from the limited supply of immunosuppressants that make them compatible with originally incompatible kidneys. We firstly present a general computational framework to model this problem. Our main contribution is a range of efficient algorithms that provide flexibility in terms of meeting meaningful objectives. Motivated by the current reality of kidney exchanges using sophisticated mathematical-programming-based clearing algorithms, we then present a general but scalable approach to optimal clearing with immunosuppression; we validate our approach on realistic data from a large fielded exchange., Comment: AAAI 2021

Rationing of healthcare resources has emerged as an important issue, which has been discussed by medical experts, policy-makers, and the general public. We consider a rationing problem where medical units are to be allocated to patients. Each unit is reserved for one of several categories and each category has a priority ranking of the patients. We present an allocation rule that respects the priorities, complies with the eligibility requirements, allocates the largest feasible number of units, and does not incentivize agents to hide that they qualify through a category. The rule characterizes all possible allocations that satisfy the first three properties and is polynomial-time computable., Comment: The new version focusses on different rules and has new characterisation results

We introduce a new two-sided stable matching problem that describes the summer internship matching practice of an Australian university. The model is a case between two models of Kamada and Kojima on matchings with distributional constraints. We study three solution concepts, the strong and weak stability concepts proposed by Kamada and Kojima, and a new one in between the two, called cutoff stability. Kamada and Kojima showed that a strongly stable matching may not exist in their most restricted model with disjoint regional quotas. Our first result is that checking its existence is NP-hard. We then show that a cutoff stable matching exists not just for the summer internship problem but also for the general matching model with arbitrary heredity constraints. We present an algorithm to compute a cutoff stable matching and show that it runs in polynomial time in our special case of summer internship model. However, we also show that finding a maximum size cutoff stable matching is NP-hard, but we provide a Mixed Integer Linear Program formulation for this optimisation problem., Comment: Extended version of our AAMAS 2020 paper "Summer Internship Matching with Funding Constraints"

We present a new model of collective decision making that captures important crowd-funding and donor coordination scenarios. In the setting, there is a set of projects (each with its own cost) and a set of agents (that have their budgets as well as preferences over the projects). An outcome is a set of projects that are funded along with the specific contributions made by the agents. For the model, we identify meaningful axioms that capture concerns including fairness, efficiency, and participation incentives. We then propose desirable rules for the model and study, which sets of axioms can be satisfied simultaneously. An experimental study indicates the relative performance of different rules as well as the price of enforcing fairness axioms.

We initiate the work on maximin share (MMS) fair allocation of m indivisible chores to n agents using only their ordinal preferences, from both algorithmic and mechanism design perspectives. The previous best-known approximation is 2-1/n by Aziz et al. [IJCAI 2017]. We improve this result by giving a simple deterministic 5/3-approximation algorithm that determines an allocation sequence of agents, according to which items are allocated one by one. By a tighter analysis, we show that for n=2,3, our algorithm achieves better approximation ratios, and is actually optimal. We also consider the setting with strategic agents, where agents may misreport their preferences to manipulate the outcome. We first provide a O(\log (m/n))-approximation consecutive picking algorithm, and then improve the approximation ratio to O(\sqrt{\log n}) by a randomized algorithm. Our results uncover some interesting contrasts between the approximation ratios achieved for chores versus goods., Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1905.08925

We analyze the run-time complexity of computing allocations that are both fair and maximize the utilitarian social welfare, defined as the sum of agents' utilities. We focus on two tractable fairness concepts: envy-freeness up to one item (EF1) and proportionality up to one item (PROP1). We consider two computational problems: (1) Among the utilitarian-maximal allocations, decide whether there exists one that is also fair; (2) among the fair allocations, compute one that maximizes the utilitarian welfare. We show that both problems are strongly NP-hard when the number of agents is variable, and remain NP-hard for a fixed number of agents greater than two. For the special case of two agents, we find that problem (1) is polynomial-time solvable, while problem (2) remains NP-hard. Finally, with a fixed number of agents, we design pseudopolynomial-time algorithms for both problems. We extend our results to the stronger fairness notions envy-freeness up to any item (EFx) and proportionality up to any item (PROPx)., Comment: Added experiments comparing dynamic programming to integer linear programming

We consider the problem of probabilistic allocation of objects under ordinal preferences. We devise an allocation mechanism, called the vigilant eating rule (VER), that applies to nearly arbitrary feasibility constraints. It is constrained ordinally efficient, can be computed efficiently for a large class of constraints, and treats agents equally if they have the same preferences and are subject to the same constraints. When the set of feasible allocations is convex, we also present a characterization of our rule based on ordinal egalitarianism. Our results about VER do not just apply to allocation problems but to all collective choice problems in which agents have ordinal preferences over discrete outcomes. As a case study, we assume objects have priorities for agents and apply VER to sets of probabilistic allocations that are constrained by stability. VER coincides with the (extended) probabilistic serial rule when priorities are flat and the agent proposing deterministic deferred acceptance algorithm when preferences and priorities are strict. While VER always returns a stable and constrained efficient allocation, it fails to be strategyproof, unconstrained efficient, and envy-free. We show, however, that each of these three properties is incompatible with stability and constrained efficiency.

The Hylland-Zeckhauser (HZ) rule is a well-known rule for random assignment of items. The complexity of the rule has received renewed interest recently with Vazirani and Yannakakis (2020) proposing a strongly polynomial-time algorithm for the rule under bi-valued utilities, and making several general insights. We study the rule under the case of agents having bi-valued utilities. We point out several characterizations of the HZ rule, drawing clearer relations with several well-known rules in the literature. As a consequence, we point out alternative strongly polynomial-time algorithms for the HZ solution. We also give reductions from computing the HZ solution to computing well-known solutions based on leximin or Nash social welfare. An interesting contrast is that the HZ rule is group-strategyproof whereas the unconstrained competitive equilibrium with equal incomes rule is not even strategyproof. We clarify which results change when moving from 1-0 utilities to the more general bi-valued utilities. Finally, we prove that the closely related Nash bargaining solution violates envy-freeness and strategyproofness even under 1-0 utilities.

We present a polynomial-time algorithm that computes an ex-ante envy-free lottery over envy-free up to one item (EF1) deterministic allocations. It has the following advantages over a recently proposed algorithm: it does not rely on the linear programming machinery including separation oracles; it is SD-efficient (both ex-ante and ex-post); and the ex-ante outcome is equivalent to the outcome returned by the well-known probabilistic serial rule. As a result, we answer a question raised by Freeman, Shah, and Vaish (2020) whether the outcome of the probabilistic serial rule can be implemented by ex-post EF1 allocations. In the light of a couple of impossibility results that we prove, our algorithm can be viewed as satisfying a maximal set of properties. Under binary utilities, our algorithm is also ex-ante group-strategyproof and ex-ante Pareto optimal. Finally, we also show that checking whether a given random allocation can be implemented by a lottery over EF1 and Pareto optimal allocations is NP-hard.

When allocating indivisible resources or tasks, an envy-free allocation or equitable allocation may not exist. We present a sufficient condition and an algorithm to achieve envy-freeness and equitability when monetary transfers are allowed. The approach works for any agent valuation functions (positive or negative) as long as they satisfy superadditivity. For the case of additive utilities, we present a characterization of allocations that can simultaneously be made equitable and envy-free via payments.

Participatory budgeting is a democratic approach to deciding the funding of public projects, which has been adopted in many cities across the world. We present a survey of research on participatory budgeting emerging from the computational social choice literature, which draws ideas from computer science and microeconomic theory. We present a mathematical model for participatory budgeting, which charts existing models across different axes including whether the projects are treated as "divisible" or "indivisible" and whether there are funding limits on individual projects. We then survey various approaches and methods from the literature, giving special emphasis on issues of preference elicitation, welfare objectives, fairness axioms, and voter incentives. Finally, we discuss several directions in which research on participatory budgeting can be extended in the future.

Randomisation and time-sharing are some of the oldest methods to achieve fairness. I make a case that applying these approaches to social choice settings constitutes a powerful paradigm that deserves an extensive and thorough examination. I discuss challenges and opportunities in applying these approaches to settings including voting, allocation, matching, and coalition formation., Comment: Preprint for book chapter in "The Future of Economic Design: The Continuing Development of a Field as Envisioned by Its Researchers"

A well-known axiom for proportional representation is Proportionality of Solid Coalitions (PSC). We characterize committees satisfying PSC as possible outcomes of the Minimal Demand rule, which generalizes an approach pioneered by Michael Dummett.

In the past few years, several new matching models have been proposed and studied that take into account complex distributional constraints. Relevant lines of work include (1) school choice with diversity constraints where students have (possibly overlapping) types and (2) hospital-doctor matching where various regional quotas are imposed. In this paper, we present a polynomial-time reduction to transform an instance of (1) to an instance of (2) and we show how the feasibility and stability of corresponding matchings are preserved under the reduction. Our reduction provides a formal connection between two important strands of work on matching with distributional constraints. We then apply the reduction in two ways. Firstly, we show that it is NP-complete to check whether a feasible and stable outcome for (1) exists. Due to our reduction, these NP-completeness results carry over to setting (2). In view of this, we help unify some of the results that have been presented in the literature. Secondly, if we have positive results for (2), then we have corresponding results for (1). One key conclusion of our results is that further developments on axiomatic and algorithmic aspects of hospital-doctor matching with regional quotas will result in corresponding results for school choice with diversity constraints., Comment: Conference version had some missing details