Coalition formation and history dependence

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Dutta, Bhaskar; Vartiainen, Hannu
• 署名单位: University of Warwick; Ashoka University; University of Helsinki
• 刊物名称: THEORETICAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1933-6837
• DOI: 10.3982/TE2947
• 发表日期: 2020-01-01
• 页码: 159-197
• 关键词: Coalition formation; farsightedness; vNM stable set; history dependence; maximality

摘要

Farsighted formulations of coalitional formation, for instance, by Harsanyi and Ray and Vohra, have typically been based on the von Neumann-Morgenstern stable set. These farsighted stable sets use a notion of indirect dominance in which an outcome can be dominated by a chain of coalitional moves in which each coalition that is involved in the sequence eventually stands to gain. Dutta and Vohra point out that these solution concepts do not require coalitions to make optimal moves. Hence, these solution concepts can yield unreasonable predictions. Dutta and Vohra restricted coalitions to hold common, history-independent expectations that incorporate optimality regarding the continuation path. This paper extends the Dutta-Vohra analysis by allowing for history-dependent expectations. The paper provides characterization results for two solution concepts that correspond to two versions of optimality. It demonstrates the power of history dependence by establishing nonemptyness results for all finite games as well as transferable utility partition function games. The paper also provides partial comparisons of the solution concepts to other solutions.