The problem of fair division for a hybrid resource

Abstract

We propose an elementary solution to the apartment rent division problem. This problem belongs to the class of problems of “fair division,” but differs from its standard setting by “heterogeneity,” i.e., the presence of both a conventional continuous component and a discrete one, a fixed set of rooms. A combinatorial-topological approach to solving this problem in a finite number of steps (each of which requires a survey of all participants), actively used in the literature, allows to obtain an approximate decision only. We propose a fundamentally different setting, based on a priori estimates of each room by the participants and allowing, in principle, to consider various optimization tasks as well. Our approach is particularly relevant in the case of a large number of participants. We also note that the proposed approach allows to find a solution in a number of cases where the combinatorial-topological approach does not work.