The Shapley-solidarity value for games with a coalition structure (Q2855499)

Cooperative game theory deals with coalitions who coordinate their actions and pool their winnings. Formally, a cooperative game in coalitional form is an ordered pair \(\langle N,v\rangle\), where \(N=\left\{ 1,2,\ldots,n\right\}\) (the set of players) and \(v:2^{N}\rightarrow \mathbb{R}\) is a map, assigning to each coalition \(S\in 2^{N}\) a real number, such that \(v(\emptyset )=0\). Often, we also refer to such a game as a TU (transferable utility) game [\textit{T. Driessen}, Cooperative games, solutions and applications. Dordrecht etc.: Kluwer Academic Publishers (1988; Zbl 0686.90043)].NEWLINENEWLINEOne of the problems in cooperative game theory is how to divide the rewards or costs among the members of the formed coalition. The Shapley value [\textit{L. S. Shapley}, Contrib. Theory of Games, II, Ann. Math. Stud. 28, 307--317 (1953; Zbl 0050.14404)], one of the main one-point solution concepts in cooperative game theory, is defined and axiomatically characterized in different game-theoretic models. Important contributions concerning the Shapley value and its characterizations are [Shapley, loc. cit.; \textit{G. Owen}, Manage. Sci., Appl. 18, 64--79 (1972; Zbl 0239.90049); \textit{H. P. Young}, Int. J. Game Theory 14, 65--72 (1985; Zbl 0569.90106)].NEWLINENEWLINEIn the present paper, a value for games with a coalition structure is introduced, where the rules guiding cooperation among the members of the same coalition are different from the interaction rules among coalitions. In particular, players inside a coalition exhibit a greater degree of solidarity than they are willing to use with players outside their coalition. As a result, the Shapley value is used to compute the aggregate payoffs for the coalitions, and the solidarity value to obtain the payoffs for the players inside each coalition.