Object Allocation Over a Network of Objects: Mobile Agents with Strict Preferences

TL;DR

This paper investigates a variant of the object allocation problem modeled as a network of objects, providing complexity results and efficient algorithms for specific network structures, advancing understanding of Pareto-efficient matchings.

Contribution

It introduces a network-of-objects model, extending previous social network models, and offers polynomial algorithms for generalized star and path networks.

Findings

Polynomial-time algorithms for generalized star networks.

NP-hardness results match social network models.

Faster algorithms for path networks.

Abstract

In recent work, Gourv\`es, Lesca, and Wilczynski propose a variant of the classic housing markets model where the matching between agents and objects evolves through Pareto-improving swaps between pairs of adjacent agents in a social network. To explore the swap dynamics of their model, they pose several basic questions concerning the set of reachable matchings. In their work and other follow-up works, these questions have been studied for various classes of graphs: stars, paths, generalized stars (i.e., trees where at most one vertex has degree greater than two), trees, and cliques. For generalized stars and trees, it remains open whether a Pareto-efficient reachable matching can be found in polynomial time. In this paper, we pursue the same set of questions under a natural variant of their model. In our model, the social network is replaced by a network of objects, and a swap is allowed to take place between two agents if it is Pareto-improving and the associated objects are adjacent in the network. In those cases where the question of polynomial-time solvability versus NP-hardness has been resolved for the social network model, we are able to show that the same result holds for the network-of-objects model. In addition, for our model, we present a polynomial-time algorithm for computing a Pareto-efficient reachable matching in generalized star networks. Moreover, the object reachability algorithm that we present for path networks is significantly faster than the known polynomial-time algorithms for the same question in the social network model.