English

Rawlsian many-to-one matching with non-linear utility

Machine Learning 2025-11-05 v1

Abstract

We study a many-to-one matching problem, such as the college admission problem, where each college can admit multiple students. Unlike classical models, colleges evaluate sets of students through non-linear utility functions that capture diversity between them. In this setting, we show that classical stable matchings may fail to exist. To address this, we propose alternative solution concepts based on Rawlsian fairness, aiming to maximize the minimum utility across colleges. We design both deterministic and stochastic algorithms that iteratively improve the outcome of the worst-off college, offering a practical approach to fair allocation when stability cannot be guaranteed.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2511.02533,
  title  = {Rawlsian many-to-one matching with non-linear utility},
  author = {Hortence Nana and Andreas Athanasopoulos and Christos Dimitrakakis},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.02533},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

17 pages, 7 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T07:21:07.979Z