Editing 2554: Gift Exchange

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In December, {{w|white elephant gift exchange}} parties are popular, in which party-goers bring and exchange presents, via a variety of procedures which often involve individuals taking turns to pick a present. Usually they can either pick a wrapped present and open it, or take a present that someone else has opened already.
 
In December, {{w|white elephant gift exchange}} parties are popular, in which party-goers bring and exchange presents, via a variety of procedures which often involve individuals taking turns to pick a present. Usually they can either pick a wrapped present and open it, or take a present that someone else has opened already.
  
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Many political scientists think that creating a ''fair'' gift exchange is a really tricky problem, since it involves different valuation of various goods (one person might like socks while another person would not), a possible incentive to misrepresent how much you value things ("You're going to have to offer me a LOT to give up these socks, because I really like them"), arbitrary order effects (who goes first matters), and more. These problems have a lot of political analogues in the political science topics of {{w|social choice theory}} and {{w|mechanism design}}, and many political scientists dedicate years of their life to figuring out the best solutions. Therefore, a political scientist would enjoy the challenge of creating a fair gift exchange; it is the best gift that Ponytail could have given them.
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Many political scientists understand that creating a ''fair'' gift exchange is a really tricky problem, since it involves different valuation of various goods (one person might like socks while another person would not), a possible incentive to misrepresent how much you value things ("You're going to have to offer me a LOT to give up these socks, because I really like them"), arbitrary order effects (who goes first matters), and more. These problems have a lot of political analogues in the political science topics of {{w|social choice theory}} and {{w|mechanism design}}, and many political scientists dedicate years of their life to figuring out the best solutions. Therefore, a political scientist would enjoy the challenge of creating a fair gift exchange; it is the best gift that Ponytail could have given them.
  
 
The scenario Ponytail presents is formally known as a {{w|fair item allocation}} problem, for which there are various approaches to how to define ''fair'', and various proposed allocation algorithms, some of which are computationally intractable even for small numbers of participants.
 
The scenario Ponytail presents is formally known as a {{w|fair item allocation}} problem, for which there are various approaches to how to define ''fair'', and various proposed allocation algorithms, some of which are computationally intractable even for small numbers of participants.

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