Hedonic coalition formation games: A new stability notion

This paper studies hedonic coalition formation games where each player’s preferences rely only upon the members of her coalition. A new stability notion under free exit-free entry membership rights, referred to as strong Nash stability, is introduced which is stronger than both core and Nash stabilities studied earlier in the literature. Strong Nash stability has an analogue in non-cooperative games and it is the strongest stability notion appropriate to the context of hedonic coalition formation games. The weak top-choice property is introduced and shown to be sufficient for the existence of a strongly Nash stable partition. It is also shown that descending separable preferences guarantee the existence of a strongly Nash stable partition. Strong Nash stability under different membership rights is also studied.     

On core membership testing for hedonic coalition formation games

We are concerned with the problem of core membership testing for hedonic coalition formation games, which is to decide whether a certain coalition structure belongs to the core of a given game. We show that this problem is co-NP complete when players’ preferences are additive.     

Two hardness results for core stability in hedonic coalition formation games

We establish NP-completeness of two problems on core stable coalitions in hedonic games. In the first problem every player has only two acceptable coalitions in his preference list, and in the second problem the preference structures arise from the distances in an underlying metric space.     

Labor unions and Nash bargaining using coalition formation games

In this paper we examine the properties of stable coalitions under sequential and simultaneous bargaining by competing labor unions. We do this using the Nash bargaining solution and various notions of stability, namely, Nash, coalitional, contractual and core stability.     

Games with externalities: games in coalition configuration function form

In this paper we introduce a model of cooperative game with externalities which generalizes games in partition function form by allowing players to take part in more than one coalition. We provide an extension of the Shapley value (1953) to these games, which is a generalization of the Myerson value (1977) for games in partition function form. This value is derived by considering an adaptation of an axiomatic characterization of the Myerson value (1977).     

The aspiration approach to predicting coalition formation and payoff distribution in sidepayment games

This paper presents the aspiration approach to coalition formation and payoff distribution in games with sidepayments. The approach is based on the idea that players set prices for their participation within coalitions. The solution space which is appropriate for price-setting players is different from that of the usual solution concepts and is called the space of aspirations. Solution concepts defined on the space of aspirations correspond to notions of how players bargain over their prices. Once the players choose a vector of prices, the coalitions which can afford to pay these prices are the coalitions which are predicted to form in the game.     

Two characterizations of the consistent egalitarian solution and of the core on NTU games

In this paper, we provide two characterizations in the context of NTU games: of the consistent egalitarian solution and of the core. The first characterization is based on reduced games and contraction and expansion independence. The second one is based on reduced games and sub-reduced games.     

Merging and splitting in cooperative games: some (im)possibility results

Allocation rules for cooperative games can be manipulated by coalitions merging into single players, or, conversely, players splitting into a number of smaller units. This paper collects some (im)possibility results on merging- and splitting-proofness of (core) allocation rules for cooperative games with side-payments.     

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.     

Bidding and sequential coalition formation with externalities

We study coalition formation games with externalities where each agent’s payoff depends on the entire partition. As in Bloch (Games Econ Behav 14:90–123, 1996) and Ray and Vohra (Games Econ Behav 26:268–336, 1999), we assume that coalitions form sequentially and agreements are irreversible. Instead of a fixed order protocol, we use a “bidding mechanism” (see Pérez-Castrillo and Wettstein in Am Econ Rev 92(5):1577–1587, 2002) to determine proposals and transfers among the agents. We show that such a mechanism facilitates the attainment of efficiency; in particular, our game admits a Markov perfect equilibrium with the property of full dynamic efficiency. In addition, the aggregate equilibrium payoffs of our game exhibit monotonicity in time. Nevertheless, inefficient equilibria can also emerge.     

Coalitional games: Monotonicity and core

We characterize a monotonic core solution defined on the class of veto balanced games. We also discuss what restricted versions of monotonicity are possible when selecting core allocations. We introduce a family of monotonic core solutions for veto balanced games and we show that, in general, the per capita nucleolus is not monotonic.     

Approximate cores of replica games and economies: Part II: Set-up costs and firm formation in coalition production economies

A model of a coalition production economy allowing set-up costs, indivisibilities,and nonconvexities is developed. It is shown that for all sufficiently large replications, approximate cores of the economy are nonempty.     

残缺模糊合作对策的加权Shapley值

针对具有模糊联盟且支付值残缺的合作对策问题,给出了E-残缺模糊对策的定义.基于残缺联盟值基数集,提出了一个同时满足对称性和线性性的w-加权Shapley值公式.通过构造模糊联盟间的边际贡献,探讨了w-加权Shapley值公式的等价表示形式,指出w-加权Shapley值与完整合作对策Shapley值的兼容性.在模糊联盟框架里,探讨了w-加权Shapley值所满足的联盟单调性、零正则性等优良性质.最后通过算例验证了该公式的有效性.     

On the core of cost-revenue games: Minimum cost spanning tree games with revenues

In this paper, we analyze cost sharing problems arising from a general service by explicitly taking into account the generated revenues. To this cost-revenue sharing problem, we associate a cooperative game with transferable utility, called cost-revenue game. By considering cooperation among the agents using the general service, the value of a coalition is defined as the maximum net revenues that the coalition may obtain by means of cooperation. As a result, a coalition may profit from not allowing all its members to get the service that generates the revenues. We focus on the study of the core of cost-revenue games. Under the assumption that cooperation among the members of the grand coalition grants the use of the service under consideration to all its members, it is shown that a cost-revenue game has a nonempty core for any vector of revenues if, and only if, the dual game of the cost game has a large core. Using this result, we investigate minimum cost spanning tree games with revenues. We show that if every connection cost can take only two values (low or high cost), then, the corresponding minimum cost spanning tree game with revenues has a nonempty core. Furthermore, we provide an example of a minimum cost spanning tree game with revenues with an empty core where every connection cost can take only one of three values (low, medium, or high cost).     

Two noncooperative games between a coalition and its surrounding in a class of n-person games with constant sum

A cooperative game engendered by a noncooperative n-person game (the master game) in which any subset of n players may form a coalition playing an antagonistic game against the residual players (the surrounding) that has a (Nash equilibrium) solution, is considered, along with another noncooperative game in which both a coalition and its surrounding try to maximize their gains that also possesses a Nash equilibrium solution. It is shown that if the master game is the one with constant sum, the sets of Nash equilibrium strategies in both above-mentioned noncooperative games (in which a coalition plays with (against) its surrounding) coincide.     

Airport games: The core and its center

An approach to define a rule for an airport problem is to associate to each problem a cooperative game, an airport game, and using game theory to come out with a solution. In this paper, we study the rule that is the average of all the core allocations: the core-center (González-Díaz and Sánchez-Rodríguez, 2007). The structure of the core is exploited to derive insights on the core-center. First, we provide a decomposition of the core in terms of the cores of the downstream-subtraction reduced games. Then, we analyze the structure of the faces of the core of an airport game that correspond to the no-subsidy constraints to find that the faces of the core can be seen as new airport games, the face games, and that the core can be decomposed through the no-subsidy cones (those whose bases are the cores of the no-subsidy face games). As a consequence, we provide two methods for computing the core-center of an airport problem, both with interesting economic interpretations: one expresses the core-center as a ratio of the volume of the core of an airport game for which a player is cloned over the volume of the original core, the other defines a recursive algorithm to compute the core-center through the no-subsidy cones. Finally, we prove that the core-center is not only an intuitive appealing game-theoretic solution for the airport problem but it has also a good behavior with respect to the basic properties one expects an airport rule to satisfy. We examine some differences between the core-center and, arguably, the two more popular game theoretic solutions for airport problems: the Shapley value and the nucleolus.     

Network strength games: the core and the nucleolus

Mathematical Programming - The maximum number of edge-disjoint spanning trees in a network has been used as a measure of the strength of a network. It gives the number of disjoint ways that the...     

Approximating the least core value and least core of cooperative games with supermodular costs

We study the approximation of the least core value and the least core of supermodular cost cooperative games. We provide a framework for approximation based on oracles that approximately determine maximally violated constraints. This framework yields a 3-approximation algorithm for computing the least core value of supermodular cost cooperative games, and a polynomial-time algorithm for computing a cost allocation in the 2-approximate least core of these games. This approximation framework extends naturally to submodular profit cooperative games. For scheduling games, a special class of supermodular cost cooperative games, we give a fully polynomial-time approximation scheme for computing the least core value. For matroid profit games, a special class of submodular profit cooperative games, we give exact polynomial-time algorithms for computing the least core value as well as a least core cost allocation.     

Partially ordered cooperative games: extended core and Shapley value

In this paper we analyze cooperative games whose characteristic function takes values in a partially ordered linear space. Thus, the classical solution concepts in cooperative game theory have to be revisited and redefined: the core concept, Shapley–Bondareva theorem and the Shapley value are extended for this class of games. The classes of standard, vector-valued and stochastic cooperative games among others are particular cases of this general theory. The research of the authors is partially supported by Spanish DGICYT grant numbers MTM2004-0909, HA2003-0121, HI2003-0189, MTM2007-67433-C02-01, P06-FQM-01366.     

Optimal coalition formation and surplus distribution: Two sides of one coin

A fuzzy coalitional game represents a situation in which players can vary the intensity at which they participate in the coalitions accessible to them, as opposed to the treatment as a binary choice in the non-fuzzy (crisp) game. Building on the property - not made use of so far in the literature of fuzzy games - that a fuzzy game can be represented as a convex program, this paper shows that the optimum of such a program determines the optimal coalitions as well as the optimal rewards for the players, two sides of one coin. Furthermore, this program is seen to provide a unifying framework for representing the core, the least core, and the (fuzzy) nucleolus, among others. Next, we derive conditions for uniqueness of core rewards and to deal with non-uniqueness we introduce a family of parametric perturbations of the convex program that encompasses a large number of well-known concepts for selection from the core, including the Dutta-Ray solution (Dutta and Ray, 1989), the equal sacrifice solution (Yu, 1973), the equal division solution (Selten, 1972) and the tau-value (Tijs, 1981). We also generalize the concept of the Grand Coalition of contracting players by allowing for multiple technologies, and we specify the conditions for this allocation to be unique and Egalitarian. Finally, we show that our formulation offers a natural extension to existing models of production economies with threats and division rules for common surplus.