On the Coalitional Rationality and the Inverse Problem for Shapley Value and the Semivalues

Abstract

In cooperative game theory, a central problem is to allocate fairly the win of the grand coalition to the players who agreed to cooperate and form the grand coalition. Such allocations are obtained by means of values, having some fairness properties, expressed in most cases by groups of axioms. In an earlier work, we solved what we called the Inverse Problem for Semivalues, in which the main result was offering an explicit formula providing the set of all games with an a priori given Semivalue, associated with a given weight vector. However, in this set there is an infinite set of games for which the Semivalues are not coalitional rational, perhaps not efficient, so that these are not fair practical solutions of the above fundamental problem. Among the Semivalues, coalitional rational solutions for the Shapley Value and the Banzhaf Value have been given in two more recent works. In the present paper, based upon a general potential basis, relative to Semivalues, for a given game and a given Semivalue, we solve the connected problem: in the Inverse Set, find out a game with the same Semivalue, which is also coalitional rational. Several examples will illustrate the corresponding numerical technique.