The dnsmasq man page recommends that dhcp-authoritative "should be
set when dnsmasq is definitely the only DHCP server on a network".
This is the case for libvirt-managed virtual networks.
The effect of this is that VMs that fail to renew their DHCP lease
in time (e.g. if the VM or host is suspended) will be able to
re-acquire the lease even if it's expired, unless the IP address has
been taken by some other host. This avoids various annoyances caused
by changing VM IP addresses.