Mechanisms for Scheduling with Single-Bit Private Values

Vincenzo Auletta, George Christodoulou, Paolo Penna

Abstract: We consider randomized mechanisms for multi-dimensional scheduling. Following Lavi and Swamy [10], we study a setting with restrictions on the domain, while still preserving multi-dimensionality. In a sense, our setting is the simplest multi-dimensional setting, where each machine holds privately only a single-bit of information. We prove a separation between truthful-in-expectation and universally truthful mechanisms for makespan minimization: We first show how to design an optimal truthful-in-expectation mechanism, and then prove lower bounds on the approximation guarantee of universally truthful mechanisms.