A proof of the Nisan-Ronen conjecture

TL;DR

This paper proves the Nisan-Ronen conjecture, confirming that the optimal deterministic truthful mechanism for makespan minimization on unrelated machines has an approximation ratio of n.

Contribution

The paper provides a formal proof confirming the conjectured approximation ratio for deterministic truthful mechanisms in unrelated machine scheduling.

Findings

The conjecture that the approximation ratio is n is validated.

The proof settles a long-standing open problem in mechanism design.

Implications for designing optimal truthful mechanisms in scheduling.

Abstract

Noam Nisan and Amir Ronen conjectured that the best approximation ratio of deterministic truthful mechanisms for makespan-minimization for $n$ unrelated machines is $n$. This work validates the conjecture.