Conservation of energy in value theory

The potential approach of value theory is extended with respect to a new characterizing property called conservation giving a clear interpretation of the potential. Many analogues between game theory and physics are presented. Particularly, there is a theorem of conservation of energy analogous to the highly important one in classical mechanics. Moreover, the Shapley-Value gets a new interpretation as the marginal contribution to a certain average in contrast to that as an average marginal contribution instead. The Banzhaf-Index can also be uniquely characterized by this approach. Finally, all results are extended to games with a continuum of players of finitely many types.Initiated in January 1995 at the Institute of Mathematical Economics, University of Bielefeld, 33501 Bielefeld, GermanyThanks to the anonymous referee for helpful comments.