Fair Stable Sets of Simple Games

23 Pages Posted: 9 Dec 2016 Last revised: 5 Jun 2017

Date Written: June 4, 2017

Abstract

Simple games are abstract representations of voting systems and other group-decision procedures. A stable set—or von Neumann-Morgenstern solution—of a simple game represents a “standard of behavior” that satisfies certain internal and external stability properties. Compound simple games are built out of component games, which are, in turn, “players” of a quotient game. I describe a method to construct fair—or symmetry-preserving—stable sets of compound simple games from fair stable sets of their quotient and components. This method is closely related to the composition theorem of Shapley (1963), and contributes to the answer of a question that he formulated: What is the set G of simple games that have a fair stable set? In particular, this method shows that the set G includes all simple games whose factors―or quotients in their “unique factorization” of Shapley (1967)―are in G, and suggests a path to characterize G.

Keywords: fair stable set; simple game; compound simple game; symmetry; aggregation

JEL Classification: C71

Suggested Citation

Talamàs, Eduard, Fair Stable Sets of Simple Games (June 4, 2017). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2882378 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2882378

Eduard Talamàs (Contact Author)

IESE Business School ( email )

Arnús i Garí, 3-7
Barcelona, Philadelphia 08034
Spain

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