On slots’ scheduling

Abstract

Server works in discrete time, and is equipped with a given sequence of per-date capacities. It has to accommodate a set of agents with unit jobs, arriving at different dates. It can process a job in several installments, however no monetary transfers are allowed. Server is given jobs’ birth dates and it only knows that agents want their jobs done as soon as possible, but not agents’ complete preferences over delays (thus, this is the model with ordinal input). We investigate how scheduling rules, coming from both assignment and queueing literature, fare in this setting. The tension between fairness and incentive compatibility, inherent to the assignment models, disappears on this domain, as both Serial and Random Priority assignment rules become strategy-proof and non-envious. This is also true for Uniform rule; but First Come First Serve or First Come Last Serve rules are not strategy-proof and generate envy.