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A Counterexample to EFX $n \ge 3$ Agents, $m \ge n + 5$ Items, Submodular Valuations via SAT-Solving

2 Pith papers cite this work. Polarity classification is still indexing.

2 Pith papers citing it
abstract

The existence of EFX allocations is a central open problem in discrete fair division. An allocation is EFX (envy-free up to any good) if no agent envies another agent after the removal of any single good from the other agent's bundle. We resolve this longstanding question by providing the \textbf{first-ever counterexample} to the existence of EFX allocations for agents with monotone valuations, which in turn immediately implies a counterexample for submodular valuations. Specifically, we show that EFX allocations need not exist for instances with $n \ge 3$ agents and $m \ge n+5$ goods. In contrast, we prove that every instance with three agents and seven goods admits an EFX allocation. Both results are obtained via SAT solving. We encode the negation of EFX existence as a SAT instance: satisfiability yields a counterexample, while unsatisfiability establishes universal existence. The correctness of the encoding is formally verified in Lean. Finally, we establish positive guarantees for fair allocations with three agents and an arbitrary number of goods. Although EFX allocations may fail to exist, we prove that every instance with three agents and monotone valuations admits at least one of two natural relaxations of EFX: tEFX, or EF1 and EEFX.

fields

cs.GT 2

years

2026 2

verdicts

UNVERDICTED 2

representative citing papers

EFX Allocations Exist on Multi-Graphs

cs.GT · 2026-06-17 · unverdicted · novelty 8.0

EFX allocations exist for multigraph instances under cancelable valuations and can be computed in polynomial time.

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