Stable bargained equilibria for assignment games without side payments (Q751520)

Traditionally the main solution concepts for games without side payments (NTU) are obtained by generalizing the notions which were invented for games with transferrable utilities (TU). One of the most interesting solution concepts for TU games is an intersection of the core and the kernel. Roughly speaking, a payoff vector belogs to this intersection iff every pair gets a ``fair'' solution in its reduced game. For assignment games (e.g., when we have to find appropriate marrying pairs) this solution coincides with the set of all payoffs that are stable under rebargaining in pairs (this result was proved by \textit{S. C. Rochford} [J. Econ. Theory 34, 262-281 (1984; Zbl 0554.90103)]). However, from the practical viewpoint utility transfer in real assignment games is reasonable only in between pairs (i.e., only inside the coalitions of size 2); all other types of utility transfer sound clumsy if not illegal in this situation. So it seems reasonable to analyse the assignment games, in which the utility transfer is permitted only inside the pairs. It seems reasonable to try to generalize the notion of core-kernel intersection to these games; however, the definition of the kernel is essentially based on a TU character of a game and it is thus difficult to generalize it. Instead of that the author generalizes the intersection- solution concept (without actually having any analog for the kernel). He proves that the correspondent solution always exists and is uniquely determined by its stability properties (like in Rochford's theorem).