Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: We study envy-freeness with subsidies for indivisible items beyond additive valuations. Assuming that every single-item marginal value lies in $[-1,1]$, we prove that a total subsidy of $O(n^{3/2}\sqrt{\log n})$ suffices to achieve envy-freeness among $n$ agents whenever all agents assign nonnegative values to every bundle or all assign nonpositive values to every bundle. These valuation classes include monotone goods and monotone chores, respectively, but do not require monotonicity. Our result establishes the first subquadratic total-subsidy bound for general monotone valuations that holds for every number of agents.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Authors: la Tour, Max Dupré, Suzuki, Mashbat
Institution: UNSW Sydney
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7212055002