# Participatory Budgeting with Project Groups

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.05213 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.05213/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 9 Dec 2020.

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Indivisible Participatory Budgeting under Weak Rankings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.07981/) (2022)
- [Participatory Budgeting with Donations and Diversity Constraints](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.15075/) (2021)
- [Fair Railway Network Design](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.02152/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We study a generalization of the standard approval-based model of participatory budgeting (PB), in which voters are providing approval ballots over a set of predefined projects and---in addition to a global budget limit, there are several groupings of the projects, each group with its own budget limit. We study the computational complexity of identifying project bundles that maximize voter satisfaction while respecting all budget limits. We show that the problem is generally intractable and describe efficient exact algorithms for several special cases, including instances with only few groups and instances where the group structure is close to be hierarchical, as well as efficient approximation algorithms. Our results could allow, e.g., municipalities to hold richer PB processes that are thematically and geographically inclusive.