“Procedural” values for cooperative games

This paper introduces a new notion of a “procedural” value for cooperative TU games. A procedural value is determined by an underlying procedure of sharing marginal contributions to coalitions formed by players joining in random order. We consider procedures under which players can only share their marginal contributions with their predecessors in the ordering, and study the set of all resulting values. The most prominent procedural value is, of course, the Shapley value obtaining under the simplest procedure of every player just retaining his entire marginal contribution. But different sharing rules lead to other interesting values, including the “egalitarian solution” and the Nowak and Radzik “solidarity value”. All procedural values are efficient, symmetric and linear. Moreover, it is shown that these properties together with two very natural monotonicity postulates characterize the class of procedural values. Some possible modifications and generalizations are also discussed. In particular, it is shown that dropping one of monotonicity axioms is equivalent to allowing for sharing marginal contributions with both predecessors and successors in the ordering.     

On the relationship between Shapley and Owen values

Owen value is an extension of Shapley value for cooperative games when a particular coalition structure or partition of the set of players is considered in addition. In this paper, we will obtain the Shapley value as an average of Owen values over each set of the same kind of coalition structures, i.e., coalition structures with equal number of sets sharing the same size.     

Two-step coalition values for multichoice games

We introduce and compare several coalition values for multichoice games. Albizuri defined coalition structures and an extension of the Owen coalition value for multichoice games using the average marginal contribution of a player over a set of orderings of the player’s representatives. Following an approach used for cooperative games, we introduce a set of nested or two-step coalition values on multichoice games which measure the value of each coalition and then divide this among the players in the coalition using either a Shapley or Banzhaf value at each step. We show that when a Shapley value is used in both steps, the resulting coalition value coincides with that of Albizuri. We axiomatize the three new coalition values and show that each set of axioms, including that of Albizuri, is independent. Further we show how the multilinear extension can be used to compute the coalition values. We conclude with a brief discussion about the applicability of the different values.     

The Shapley value for cooperative games under precedence constraints

Cooperative games are considered where only those coalitions of players are feasible that respect a given precedence structure on the set of players. Strengthening the classical symmetry axiom, we obtain three axioms that give rise to a unique Shapley value in this model. The Shapley value is seen to reflect the expected marginal contribution of a player to a feasible random coalition, which allows us to evaluate the Shapley value nondeterministically. We show that every exact algorithm for the Shapley value requires an exponential number of operations already in the classical case and that even restriction to simple games is #P-hard in general. Furthermore, we outline how the multi-choice cooperative games of Hsiao and Raghavan can be treated in our context, which leads to a Shapley value that does not depend on pre-assigned weights. Finally, the relationship between the Shapley value and the permission value of Gilles, Owen and van den Brink is discussed. Both refer to formally similar models of cooperative games but reflect complementary interpretations of the precedence constraints and thus give rise to fundamentally different solution concepts.     

全对策的边际贡献值

全对策是定义在局中人集合的所有分划集上的一类特殊合作对策.本文在效用可转移情形下研究全对策的"值"问题.定义了全对策的边际贡献值,得出全对策的Shapley值,以及具有某些性质的值是边际贡献值,并给出两种边际贡献值的具体表达式,及其一些性质.     

The collective value: a new solution for games with coalition structures

In this study, we provide a new solution for cooperative games with coalition structures. The collective value of a player is defined as the sum of the equal division of the pure surplus obtained by his coalition from the coalitional bargaining and of his Shapley value for the internal coalition. The weighted Shapley value applied to a game played by coalitions with coalition-size weights is assigned to each coalition, reflecting the size asymmetries among coalitions. We show that the collective value matches exogenous interpretations of coalition structures and provide an axiomatic foundation of this value. A noncooperative mechanism that implements the collective value is also presented.     

The Harsanyi paradox and the “right to talk” in bargaining among coalitions

We describe a coalitional value from a non-cooperative point of view, assuming coalitions are formed for the purpose of bargaining. The idea is that all the players have the same chances to make proposals. This means that players maintain their own “right to talk” when joining a coalition. The resulting value coincides with the weighted Shapley value in the game between coalitions, with weights given by the size of the coalitions. Moreover, the Harsanyi paradox (forming a coalition may be disadvantageous) disappears for convex games.     

Compensations in the Shapley value and the compensation solutions for graph games

We consider an alternative expression of the Shapley value that reveals a system of compensations: each player receives an equal share of the worth of each coalition he belongs to, and has to compensate an equal share of the worth of any coalition he does not belong to. We give a representation in terms of formation of the grand coalition according to an ordering of the players and define the corresponding compensation vector. Then, we generalize this idea to cooperative games with a communication graph in order to construct new allocation rules called the compensation solutions. Firstly, we consider cooperative games with arbitrary graphs and construct rooted spanning trees (see Demange, J Political Econ 112:754–778, 2004) instead of orderings of the players by using the classical algorithms DFS and BFS. If the graph is complete, we show that the compensation solutions associated with DFS and BFS coincide with the Shapley value and the equal surplus division respectively. Secondly, we consider cooperative games with a forest (cycle-free graph) and all its rooted spanning trees. The compensation solution is characterized by component efficiency and relative fairness. The latter axiom takes into account the relative position of a player with respect to his component in the communication graph.     

On an extension of the concept of TU-games and their values

We propose a new more general approach to TU-games and their efficient values, significantly different from the classical one. It leads to extended TU-games described by a triplet \((N,v,\Omega )\), where (N, v) is a classical TU-game on a finite grand coalition N, and \(\Omega \in {\mathbb {R}}\) is a game worth to be shared between the players in N. Some counterparts of the Shapley value, the equal division value, the egalitarian Shapley value and the least square prenucleolus are defined and axiomatized on the set of all extended TU-games. As simple corollaries of the obtained results, we additionally get some new axiomatizations of the Shapley value and the egalitarian Shapley value. Also the problem of independence of axioms is widely discussed.     

Value theory without symmetry

We investigate quasi-values of finite games – solution concepts that satisfy the axioms of Shapley (1953) with the possible exception of symmetry.  Following Owen (1972), we define “random arrival', or path, values: players are assumed to “enter' the game randomly, according to independently distributed arrival times, between 0 and 1; the payoff of a player is his expected marginal contribution to the set of players that have arrived before him.  The main result of the paper characterizes quasi-values, symmetric with respect to some coalition structure with infinite elements (types), as random path values, with identically distributed random arrival times for all players of the same type.  General quasi-values are shown to be the random order values (as in Weber (1988) for a finite universe of players).  Pseudo-values (non-symmetric generalization of semivalues) are also characterized, under different assumptions of symmetry. Received: April 1998/Revised version: February 2000     

Monotonicity and dummy free property for multi-choice cooperative games

Given a coalition of ann-person cooperative game in characteristic function form, we can associate a zero-one vector whose non-zero coordinates identify the players in the given coalition. The cooperative game with this identification is just a map on such vectors. By allowing each coordinate to take finitely many values we can define multi-choice cooperative games. In such multi-choice games we can also define Shapley value axiomatically. We show that this multi-choice Shapley value is dummy free of actions, dummy free of players, non-decreasing for non-decreasing multi-choice games, and strictly increasing for strictly increasing cooperative games. Some of these properties are closely related to some properties of independent exponentially distributed random variables. An advantage of multi-choice formulation is that it allows to model strategic behavior of players within the context of cooperation.Partially funded by the NSF grant DMS-9024408     

An axiomatization of the τ-value

The τ-value is characterized by three axioms. It is shown that the τ-value is the unique solution concept which is efficient and has the minimal right property and the restricted proportionality property. The minimal right property is weaker than the additivity property, which plays a role in the axiomatic characterization of the Shapley value: together with individual rationality and efficiency additivity implies the minimal right property. The restricted proportionality property says that for games with minimal right vector zero, the dividend given to the players is proportional to the marginal contribution of the players to the grand coalition.     

The Shapley Valuation Function for Strategic Games in which Players Cooperate

In this note we use the Shapley value to define a valuation function. A valuation function associates with every non-empty coalition of players in a strategic game a vector of payoffs for the members of the coalition that provides these players’ valuations of cooperating in the coalition. The Shapley valuation function is defined using the lower-value based method to associate coalitional games with strategic games that was introduced in Carpente et al. (2005). We discuss axiomatic characterizations of the Shapley valuation function.     

Games on fuzzy communication structures with Choquet players

Myerson (1977) used graph-theoretic ideas to analyze cooperation structures in games. In his model, he considered the players in a cooperative game as vertices of a graph, which undirected edges defined their communication possibilities. He modified the initial games taking into account the graph and he established a fair allocation rule based on applying the Shapley value to the modified game. Now, we consider a fuzzy graph to introduce leveled communications. In this paper players play in a particular cooperative way: they are always interested first in the biggest feasible coalition and second in the greatest level (Choquet players). We propose a modified game for this situation and a rule of the Myerson kind.     

A general procedure to compute mixed modified semivalues for cooperative games with structure of coalition blocks

Semivalues are solution concepts for cooperative games that assign to each player a weighted sum of his/her marginal contributions to the coalitions, where the weights only depend on the coalition size. The Shapley value and the Banzhaf value are semivalues. Mixed modified semivalues are solutions for cooperative games when we consider a priori coalition blocks in the player set. For all these solutions, a computational procedure is offered in this paper.     

A solidarity value forn-person transferable utility games

In this paper, we introduce axiomatically a new value for cooperative TU games satisfying the efficiency, additivity, and symmetry axioms of Shapley (1953) and some new postulate connected with the average marginal contributions of the members of coalitions which can form. Our solution is referred to as the solidarity value. The reason is that its interpretation can be based on the assumption that if a coalition, sayS, forms, then the players who contribute toS more than the average marginal contribution of a member ofS support in some sense their weaker partners inS. Sometimes, it happens that the solidarity value belongs to the core of a game while the Shapley value does not.This research was supported by the KBN Grant 664/2/91 No. 211589101.     

Bargaining with commitments

We study a simple bargaining mechanism in which, given an order of players, the first n–1 players sequentially announce their reservation price. Once these prices are given, the last player may choose a coalition to cooperate with, and pay each member of this coalition his reservation price. The only expected final equilibrium payoff is a new solution concept, the selective value, which can be defined by means of marginal contributions vectors of a reduced game. The selective value coincides with the Shapley value for convex games. Moreover, for 3-player games the vectors of marginal contributions determine the core when it is nonempty.A previous version of this paper has benefited from helpful comments from Gustavo Bergantiños. Numerous suggestions of two anonymous referees, the Associate Editor, and William Thomson, Editor, have led to significant improvements of the final version. Financial support by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología and FEDER through grant BEC2002-04102-C02-01 and Xunta de Galicia through grant PGIDIT03PXIC30002PN is gratefully acknowledged.     

Tree,web and average web values for cycle-free directed graph games

On the class of cycle-free directed graph games with transferable utility solution concepts, called web values, are introduced axiomatically, each one with respect to a chosen coalition of players that is assumed to be an anti-chain in the directed graph and is considered as a management team. We provide their explicit formula representation and simple recursive algorithms to calculate them. Additionally the efficiency and stability of web values are studied. Web values may be considered as natural extensions of the tree and sink values as has been defined correspondingly for rooted and sink forest graph games. In case the management team consists of all sources (sinks) in the graph a kind of tree (sink) value is obtained. In general, at a web value each player receives the worth of this player together with his subordinates minus the total worths of these subordinates. It implies that every coalition of players consisting of a player with all his subordinates receives precisely its worth. We also define the average web value as the average of web values over all management teams in the graph. As application the water distribution problem of a river with multiple sources, a delta and possibly islands is considered.     

基于合作博弈的移动支付商业模式动态联盟企业利益分配研究

移动支付是近年来的热门发展方向,但是目前我国还没有形成统一的移动支付商业模式,已有研究没有量化各参与主体的价值贡献,导致利益分配产生冲突。针对这一问题,采用合作博弈理论系统分析通信运营商、金融机构、第三方支付平台在移动支付商业模式中的价值贡献,在基于Shapley值法量化的基础上引入资源投入、风险分担、创新能力三要素进行改进,计算得到各参与主体在合作联盟中的综合量化值。研究结果表明,将改进的Shapley值法应用于移动支付商业模式利益分配研究更能体现公平性和科学性,为解决各参与主体合作冲突、构建协同创新与利益共享的移动支付商业模式提供理论借鉴与参考。     

On the Convenience to Form Coalitions or Partnerships in Simple Games

A partnership in a cooperative game is a coalition that possesses an internal structure and, simultaneously, behaves as an individual member. Forming partnerships leads to a modification of the original game which differs from the quotient game that arises when one or more coalitions are actually formed. In this paper, the Shapley value is used to discuss the convenience to form either coalitions or partnerships. To this end, the difference between the additive Shapley value of the partnership in the partnership game and the Shapley alliance value of the coalition, and also between the corresponding value of the internal and external players, are analysed. Simple games are especially considered. Research partially supported by Grant BFM 2003-01314 of the Science and Technology Spanish Ministry and the European Regional Development Fund.