Reduced games, consistency, and the core (Q1189666)

This paper establishes an axiomatization of the core by means of an internal consistency property with respect to a new reduced game introduced by \textit{H. Moulin} [J. Econ. Theory 36, 120-148 (1985; Zbl 0603.90013)]. Given a payoff vector chosen by a solution for some game, and given a subgroup of agents, we define the reduced game as that in which each coalition in the subgroup could attain payoffs to its members only if they are compatible with the initial payoffs to all the members outside of the subgroup. The solution is consistent if it selects the same payoff distribution for the reduced game as initially. We show that consistency together with individual rationality characterizes the core of both transferable and non-transferable utility games.