Fair cake-cutting algorithms with real land-value data

Abstract

Fair division of land is an important practical problem that is commonly handled either by hiring assessors or by selling and dividing the proceeds. A third way to divide land fairly is via algorithms for fair cake-cutting. However, the current theory of fair cake-cutting is not yet ready to optimally share a plot of land and such algorithms are seldom used in practical land-division. We attempt to narrow the gap between theory and practice by performing extensive simulations of a classic cake-cutting algorithm on real land-value data. We improve the practical performance of this algorithm using heuristics we developed, and show their effectiveness on real land-value maps compared to actual assessment and sale data on various performance metrics. The cake-cutting algorithms perform better in most metrics. We further examined the cake cutting algorithm with respect to strategic gain of an agent relative to a truthful agent. The strategic gain was found to be insignificant effect in cake-cutting algorithms.