A Game Theoretic Perspective On Coalition Formation

Drawing upon and extending his inaugural Lipsey Lectures, Debraj Ray looks at coalition formation from the perspective of game theory. Ray brings together developments in both cooperative and noncooperative game theory to study the analytics of coalition formation and binding agreements.

Drawing upon and extending his inaugural Lipsey Lectures, Debraj Ray looks at coalition formation from the perspective of game theory. Ray brings together developments in both cooperative and noncooperative game theory to study the analytics of coalition formation and binding agreements.

Coalition and Connection in Games: Problems of Modern Game Theory using Methods Belonging to Systems Theory and Information Theory focuses on coalition formation and on connections occurring in games, noting the use of mathematical models in the evaluation of processes involved in games. The book first takes a look at the process of strategy in playing games in which the conditional choices of players are noted. The sequence of decisions during the playing of games and observance of the rules are emphasized. The text also ponders on the mathematical tool of game theory in which the differences in the playing of games is seen as influenced by the number of players involved. The manuscript reviews how the von Neumann-Morgenstern theory is used in measuring the conditions on how games are played. The theory points out that games with more than two players call for the introduction of concepts and an instrument in comparison with two-person zero-sum games. The text also underscores the tendency of players to obtain a large share of the payoff, whether playing by themselves or participating in coalitions. The book is a fine reference for readers interested in the analysis of game theories.

Coalition Formation and Social Choice provides a unified and comprehensive study of coalition formation and collective decision-making in committees. It discusses the main existing theories including the size principle, conflict of interest theory, dominant player theory, policy distance theory and power excess theory. In addition, the book offers new theories of coalition formation in which the endogenous formation of preferences for coalitions is basic. Both simple game theory and social choice theory are extensively applied in the treatment of the theories. This combined application not only leads to new theories but also offers a new and fresh perspective on coalition formation and collective decision-making in committees. The book covers the fundamental concepts and results of social choice theory including Arrow's Impossibility Theorem. Furthermore, it gives a coherent treatment of the theory of simple games. Besides more traditional topics in simple game theory like power indices, it also introduces new aspects of simple games such as the Chow parameter, the Chow vector and the notion of similar games.

The theory of n-person cooperative games presented by von Neumann and Morgenstern is a mathematical theory of coalition behaviour. A fundamental problem posed in game theory is to determine what outcomes are likely to occur if a game is played by rational players. Given an n-person cooperative game and assuming rational behaviour, it is natural to inquire which of the possible coalitions can be expected to form and what will be the final payoffs to each of the players. However, most of the research in game theory has been concerned explicityly with predicting player's payoff and only implicityly (if at all) with predicting which coalitions shall form. In this investigation, the primary emphasis is on the first aspect of coalition behaviour, namely the formation of coalitions.

First published in 1984. In this book, the authors set forth the central ideas and results of the major theories of coalition forming behavior. These theories address situations of partial conflict of interest with the following aspects: (1) there are three or more players, (2) players may openly communicate with each other, and (3) players form coalitions by freely negotiating agreements on how to disburse the gains that result from the coalition members’ joint coordinated efforts. These models arise from the two disciplines of mathematics, in the theory of cooperative n-person games with side payments, and social psychology, in theories of small group behavior in mixed-motive situations. The goal is to explore the various solution concepts that make up this body of theory, and in particular to examine the psychological premises that underlie the various theoretical models.

Cooperative game theory is a branch of (micro-)economics that studies the behavior of self-interested agents in strategic settings where binding agreements among agents are possible. Our aim in this book is to present a survey of work on the computational aspects of cooperative game theory. We begin by formally defining transferable utility games in characteristic function form, and introducing key solution concepts such as the core and the Shapley value. We then discuss two major issues that arise when considering such games from a computational perspective: identifying compact representations for games, and the closely related problem of efficiently computing solution concepts for games. We survey several formalisms for cooperative games that have been proposed in the literature, including, for example, cooperative games defined on networks, as well as general compact representation schemes such as MC-nets and skill games. As a detailed case study, we consider weighted voting games: a widely-used and practically important class of cooperative games that inherently have a natural compact representation. We investigate the complexity of solution concepts for such games, and generalizations of them. We briefly discuss games with non-transferable utility and partition function games. We then overview algorithms for identifying welfare-maximizing coalition structures and methods used by rational agents to form coalitions (even under uncertainty), including bargaining algorithms. We conclude by considering some developing topics, applications, and future research directions.