The comparability of the classical and the Mas-Colell bargaining sets

The Mas-Colell bargaining set is shown to contain the classical bargaining set for superadditive NTU games satisfying the nonlevelness condition. Without superadditivity this is no longer true, but in the TU case the containment still holds for the closure of the Mas-Colell bargaining set. Received: April 2000/Revised version: November 2000     

动态联盟形成与谈判集

在具有可转让效用的合作博弈中,T oen A rno ld和U lrich Schw a lbe提出了动态联盟形成及其吸收状态的模型:在联盟形成的动态过程中,当核心非空时,大联盟和核心是吸收状态.在此基础上,我们进一步推广了该模型:证明了Zhou L in谈判集是动态联盟形成过程的吸收状态之一,弥补了当核心是空集时,除了大联盟之外再无吸收状态的不足.该结果使得原模型更趋完善.     

Cooperation under interval uncertainty

In this paper, the classical theory of two-person cooperative games is extended to two-person cooperative games with interval uncertainty. The core, balancedness, superadditivity and related topics are studied. Solutions called ψ ^α-values are introduced and characterizations are given.     

Perfect equilibria of a model of n-person noncooperative bargaining

We study the set of subgame perfect equilibria associated with then-person noncooperative bargaining mechanism proposed by Hart and Mas-Colell (1992). Our results pertain to transferable utility games. The set of perfect equilibria depends on the parameter representing the continuation probability, . For general TU games, we characterize the set of payoffs from perfect equilibria for (a) small values of and (b) large values of . For symmetric games a complete characterization for all values of is provided.We are grateful to Andreu Mas-Colell for help and encouragement and to two referees for every helpful comments.     

A characterization of convex games by means of bargaining sets

The aim of the paper is to characterize the classical convexity notion for cooperative TU games by means of the Mas-Colell and the Davis–Maschler bargaining sets. A new set of payoff vectors is introduced and analyzed: the max-Weber set. This set is defined as the convex hull of the max-marginal worth vectors. The characterizations of convexity are reached by comparing the classical Weber set, the max-Weber set and a selected bargaining set.     

Balancedness conditions for exact games

We provide two new characterizations of exact games. First, a game is exact if and only if it is exactly balanced; and second, a game is exact if and only if it is totally balanced and overbalanced. The condition of exact balancedness is identical to the one of balancedness, except that one of the balancing weights may be negative, while for overbalancedness one of the balancing weights is required to be non-positive and no weight is put on the grand coalition. Exact balancedness and overbalancedness are both easy to formulate conditions with a natural game-theoretic interpretation and are shown to be useful in applications. Using exact balancedness we show that exact games are convex for the grand coalition and we provide an alternative proof that the classes of convex and totally exact games coincide. We provide an example of a game that is totally balanced and convex for the grand coalition, but not exact. Finally we relate classes of balanced, totally balanced, convex for the grand coalition, exact, totally exact, and convex games to one another.     

Equilibrium computation of the Hart and Mas-Colell bargaining model

The 8-th problem raised by [Hart, S., Mas-Colell, A., 2010. Bargaining and cooperation in strategic form games. Journal of the European Economics Association 8 (1), 7–33], is solved. To be specific, I show that the set of SP equilibria can be determined by a finite number of systems of linear inequalities, which are efficiently solvable when there are two players. This is more or less surprising because the Hart and Mas-Colell bargaining model and the SP equilibrium both seem to be rather complicated, and it is well known that an arbitrary Nash equilibrium is hard to compute, even when there are only two players. Using this algorithm, it is shown that players of Prisoners’ Dilemma can cooperate to some extent in the Hart and Mas-Colell bargaining, and full cooperation is attainable as ρ$\rho$, a parameter of this model, approaches to 1. Quantitative efficiency, i.e. price of anarchy, is also analyzed.     

A consistent value for games with n players and r alternatives

In Bolger [1993], an efficient value was obtained for a class of games called games with n players and r alternatives. In these games, each of the n players must choose one and only one of the r alternatives. This value can be used to determine a player’s “a priori” value in such a game. In this paper, we show that the value has a consistency property similar to the “consistency” for TU games in Hart/Mas-Colell [1989] and we present a set of axioms (including consistency) which characterizes this value.  The games considered in this paper differ from the multi-choice games considered by Hsiao and Raghavan [1993]. They consider games in which the actions of the players are ordered in the sense that, if i >j, then action i carries more “weight” than action j.  These games also differ from partition function games in that the worth of a coalition depends not only on the partitioning of the players but also on the action chosen by each subset of the partition. Received: April 1994/final version: June 1999     

Nash bargaining,Shapley threats,and outside options

We introduce a weighted version of the component efficient χ$\chi$-value [Casajus, A., 2009. Outside options, component efficiency, and stability. Games and Economic Behavior 65 (1), 49–61] for TU games with a coalition structure. We provide characterizations both for a symmetric and for an asymmetric treatment of outside options. Further, the stability of coalition structures is explored. These concepts are applied to apex games.     

Closedness under reduced games

We will introduce the notation of the generalized reduced game to unify the representations for maximal subclasses of the classes of essential games (superadditive games and convex games) that are closed under reduction in the sense of Sobolev (1975), Hart and Mas-Colell (1989), and Moulin (1985), respectively.     

Non-cooperative implementation of the nucleolus: The 3-player case

I present a non-cooperative bargaining game, in which responders may exit at any time and have endogenous outside options. When the order of proposers corresponds to the power that players have in the underlying coalitional function, the unique Markov perfect equilibrium outcome of the game is the prenucleolus. The result holds for 3-player superadditive games. An example shows that it cannot be extented to the same class of games forn players. The mechanism is inspired by the consistency property of the prenucleolus.I am grateful to Vijay Krishna, Andreu Mas-Colell, Eric Maskin, Amy Salsbury, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments and suggestions.     

On the convexity of communication games

A communication situation consists of a game and a communication graph. By introducing two different types of corresponding communication games, point games and arc games, the Myerson value and the position value of a communication situation were introduced. This paper investigates relations between convexity of the underlying game and the two communication games. In particular, assuming the underlying game to be convex, necessary and sufficient conditions on the communication graph are provided such that the communication games are convex. Moreover, under the same conditions, it is shown that the Myerson value and the posi tion value are in the core of the point game. Some remarks are made on superadditivity and balancedness.     

Nonsymmetric variants of the prekernel and the prenucleolus

A solution on a class of TU games that satisfies the axioms of the pre-nucleolus or -kernel except the equal treatment property and is single valued for two-person games, is a nonsymmetric pre-nucleolus (NSPN) or -kernel (NSPK). We investigate the NSPKs and NSPNs and their relations to the positive prekernel and to the positive core. It turns out that any NSPK is a subsolution of the positive prekernel. Moreover, we show that an arbitrary NSPK, when applied to a TU game, intersects the set of preimputations whose dissatisfactions coincide with the dissatisfactions of an arbitrary element of any other NSPK applied to this game. This result also provides a new proof of sufficiency of the characterizing conditions for NSPKs introduced by Orshan (Non-symmetric prekernels, discussion paper 60. Center for Rationality, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1994). Any NSPN belongs to ??its?? NSPK. Several classes of NSPNs are presented, all of them being subsolutions of the positive core. We show that any NSPN is a subsolution of the positive core provided that it satisfies the equal treatment property on an infinite subset of the universe of potential players. Moreover, we prove that, for any game whose prenucleolus is in its anticore, any NSPN coincides with the prenucleolus.     

Nonsymmetric values under Hart-Mass-Colell consistency

Let f be a single valued solution for cooperative TU games that satisfies inessential game property, efficiency, Hart Mas-Colell consistency and for two person games is strictly monotonic and individually unbounded. Then there exists a family of strictly increasing functions associated with players that completely determines f. For two person games, both players have equal differences between their functions at the solution point and at the values of characteristic function of their singletons. This solution for two person games is uniquely extended to n person games due to consistency and efficiency. The extension uses the potential with respect to the family of functions and generalizes potentials introduced by Hart and Mas Colell [6]. The weighted Shapley values, the proportional value described by Ortmann [11], and new values generated by power functions are among these solutions. The author is grateful to anonymous referee and Associate Editor for their comments and suggestions.     

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 sets and the core in partitioning games

Partitioning games are useful on two counts: first, in modeling situations with restricted cooperative possibilities between the agents; second, as a general framework for many unrestricted cooperative games generated by combinatorial optimization problems.We show that the family of partitioning games defined on a fixed basic collection is closed under the strategic equivalence of games, and also for taking the monotonic cover of games. Based on these properties we establish the coincidence of the Mas-Colell, the classical, the semireactive, and the reactive bargaining setswith the core for interesting balanced subclasses of partitioning games, including assignment games, tree-restricted superadditive games, and simple network games. Prepared during the author’s Bolyai János Research Fellowship. Also supported by OTKA grant T46194.     

The bargaining set of four-person balanced games

It is well known that in three-person transferable-utility cooperative games the bargaining set ℳⁱ ₁ and the core coincide for any coalition structure, provided the latter solution is not empty. In contrast, five-person totally-balanced games are discussed in the literature in which the bargaining set ℳⁱ ₁ (for the grand coalition) is larger then the core. This paper answers the equivalence question in the remaining four-person case. We prove that in any four-person game and for arbitrary coalition structure, whenever the core is not empty, it coincides with the bargaining set ℳⁱ ₁. Our discussion employs a generalization of balancedness to games with coalition structures. Received: August 2001/Revised version: April 2002     

Stable outcomes of the roommate game with transferable utility

We consider the TU version of Gale and Shapley's roommate game. We find several results that are analogous to known results for the NTU game, such as a characterization of stable outcomes by forbidden minors, a characterization of the extreme points of the core, and a median property of stable outcomes. The TU roommate game is a special case of the TU partitioning game of Kaneko and Wooders. Bondareva and Shapley's balancedness condition for the core of such games is the starting point for our forbidden minors approach. Received: April 1999/Revised version: November 2000     

On multi-choice TU games arising from replica of economies

In this paper we derive a multi-choice TU game from r-replica of exchange economy with continuous, concave and monetary utility functions, and prove that the cores of the games converge to a subset of the set of Edgeworth equilibria of exchange economy as r approaches to infinity. We prove that the dominance core of each balanced multi-choice TU game, where each player has identical activity level r, coincides with the dominance core of its corresponding r-replica of exchange economy. We also give an extension of the concept of the cover of the game proposed by Shapley and Shubik (J Econ Theory 1: 9-25, 1969) to multi-choice TU games and derive some sufficient conditions for the nonemptyness of the core of multi-choice TU game by using the relationship among replica economies, multi-choice TU games and their covers.     

Balancedness of Sequencing Games with Multiple Parallel Machines

We provide simple constructive proofs of balancedness of classes of m-PS (m-Parallel Sequencing) games, which arise from sequencing situations with m parallel machines. This includes the setting that is studied by Calleja et al. (2001) and Calleja et al. (2002), who provided a complex constructive proof and a simple non-constructive proof of balancedness of a restricted class of 2-PS games, respectively. Furthermore, we provide a counterexample to illustrate that our balancedness results cannot be extended to a general setting.