Cooperative game theory

In game theory, a cooperative game (or coalitional game) is a game with groups of players who form binding “coalitions” with external enforcement of cooperative behavior (e.g. through contract law). This is different from non-cooperative games in which there is either no possibility to forge alliances or all agreements need to be self-enforcing (e.g. through credible threats).

This article is about game theory. For video gaming, see Cooperative video game. For the similar feature in some board games, see Cooperative board game.

Cooperative games are analysed by focusing on coalitions that can be formed, and the joint actions that groups can take and the resulting collective payoffs.

Cooperative game theory provides a high-level approach as it only describes the structure, strategies and payoffs of coalitions. As non-cooperative game theory is more general, cooperative games can be analyzed through the approach of non-cooperative game theory (the converse does not hold) provided that sufficient assumptions are made to encompass all the possible strategies available to players due to the possibility of external enforcement of cooperation. While it would thus be possible to have all games expressed under a non-cooperative framework, in many instances insufficient information is available to accurately model the formal procedures available to the players during the strategic bargaining process, or the resulting model would be of too high complexity to offer a practical tool in the real world. In such cases, cooperative game theory provides a simplified approach that allows the analysis of the game at large without having to make any assumption about bargaining powers.

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