Strategyproof Facility Location Mechanisms on Discrete Trees

Abstract

We address the problem of strategyproof (SP) facility location mechanisms on discrete trees. Our main result is a full characterization of onto and SP mechanisms. In particular, we prove that when a single agent significantly affects the outcome, the trajectory of the facility is almost contained in the trajectory of the agent, and both move in the same direction along the common edges. We show tight relations of our characterization to previous results on discrete lines and on continuous trees. We then derive further implications of the main result for infinite discrete lines.