# Quantifying inefficiency in cost-sharing mechanisms

@article{Roughgarden2009QuantifyingII,
title={Quantifying inefficiency in cost-sharing mechanisms},
author={Tim Roughgarden and Mukund Sundararajan},
journal={J. ACM},
year={2009},
volume={56},
pages={23:1-23:33}
}
• Published 1 June 2009
• Economics
• J. ACM
In a cost-sharing problem, several participants with unknown preferences vie to receive some good or service, and each possible outcome has a known cost. A cost-sharing mechanism is a protocol that decides which participants are allocated a good and at what prices. Three desirable properties of a cost-sharing mechanism are: incentive-compatibility, meaning that participants are motivated to bid their true private value for receiving the good; budget-balance, meaning that the mechanism recovers…

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