New characterizations of the Owen and Banzhaf-Owen values using the intracoalitional balanced contributions property (Q1688446)

This paper considers cooperative games with coalition structure (or with a priori unions). In one of these games, a set of agents pursue a common benefit and each coalition can make a profit regardless of the remaining agents. An example is the execution of a project, so that the coalition building can generate savings for its members. Moreover, it is considered a partition on the set of players that models the existence of restrictions on cooperation among players and that may be due to family, political or economic reasons. There are different solutions in the literature for cooperative games with coalition structure, that is, profit-sharing mechanisms among the involved agents. Well-known solutions for cooperative games with coalition structure are the Owen value defined by \textit{G. Owen} [Lect. Notes Econ. Math. Syst. 141, 76--88 (1977; Zbl 0395.90095)] and the Banzhaf-Owen value defined by \textit{G. Owen} [in: Power, voting, and voting power, Würzburg-Wien: Physica-Verlag. 232--238 (1981; Zbl 0528.90005)]. Different properties for a valued solution can be considered. The property of intracoalitional balanced contributions is a kind of fairness property. It was introduced in [\textit{E. Calvo} et al., Math. Soc. Sci. 31, No. 3, 171--182 (1996; Zbl 0929.91003)], and it states that given two players of the same union, the amounts that each of the players wins or loses when the other player leaves the game, must be equal. The current paper offers different parallel axiomatic characterizations of the Owen value and the Banzhaf-Owen value. In all of them, the property of balanced intracoalitional contributions is used. From the different axiomatic characterizations, it is deduced that a relevant difference between both values is that the Owen value satisfies the well-known property of efficiency while the Banzhaf-Owen value satisfies the properties of 1-efficiency (which is a particular case of efficiency) and the property of neutrality for amalgamated players. The latter property establishes that the sum of the payments obtained by two players in the same union coincides with the payment obtained by the representative of both in the so-called amalgamated game. Other properties used in axiomatic characterizations are independence of amalgamation in other unions, quotient game or 1-quotient game. An expression is provided for all values for cooperative games with coalition structure that satisfy the property of intracoalitional balanced contributions. In addition, it is shown that the properties used in the different axiomatic characterizations are independent.