Envy-Free Makespan Approximation

Abstract

We study envy-free mechanisms for scheduling tasks on unrelated machines (agents) that approximately minimize the makespan. For indivisible tasks, we put forward an envy-free poly-time mechanism that approximates the minimal makespan to within a factor of $O(\log m)$, where $m$ is the number of machines. We also show a lower bound of $\hat{I}\text{c◯}(\log m/\log \log m)$. This improves the recent result of Hartline {\sl et al.} \cite{Ahuva:2008} who give an upper bound of $(m+1)/2$, and a lower bound of $2-1/m$. For divisible tasks, we show that there always exists an envy-free poly-time mechanism with optimal makespan.