Fair and Square: Cake-cutting in Two Dimensions

Abstract

We consider the problem of fairly dividing a two dimensional heterogeneous good among multiple players. Applications include division of land as well as ad space in print and electronic media. Classical cake cutting protocols primarily consider a one-dimensional resource, or allocate each player multiple infinitesimally small "pieces". In practice, however, the two dimensional \emph{shape} of the allotted piece is of crucial importance in many applications (e.g. squares or bounded aspect-ratio rectangles are most useful for building houses, as well as advertisements). We thus introduce and study the problem of fair two-dimensional division wherein the allotted plots must be of some restricted two-dimensional geometric shape(s). Adding this geometric constraint re-opens most questions and challenges related to cake-cutting. Indeed, even the elementary \emph{proportionality} fairness criteria can no longer be guaranteed in all cases. In this paper we thus examine the \emph{level} of proportionality that \emph{can} be guaranteed, providing both impossibility results (for proportionality that cannot be guaranteed), and algorithmic constructions (for proportionality that can be guaranteed). We focus primarily on the case when the cake is a rectilinear polygon and the allotted plots must be squares or bounded aspect-ratio rectangles.