Title: Formation of coalition structures as a non-cooperative game,
Abstract: Traditionally social sciences are interested in structuring people in
multiple groups based on their individual preferences. This pa- per suggests an
approach to this problem in the framework of a non- cooperative game theory.
Definition of a suggested finite game includes a family of nested simultaneous
non-cooperative finite games with intra- and inter-coalition externalities. In
this family, games differ by the size of maximum coalition, partitions and by
coalition structure formation rules. A result of every game consists of
partition of players into coalitions and a payoff? profiles for every player.
Every game in the family has an equilibrium in mixed strategies with possibly
more than one coalition. The results of the game differ from those
conventionally discussed in cooperative game theory, e.g. the Shapley value,
strong Nash, coalition-proof equilibrium, core, kernel, nucleolus. We discuss
the following applications of the new game: cooperation as an allocation in one
coalition, Bayesian games, stochastic games and construction of a
non-cooperative criterion of coalition structure stability for studying focal
points.