A Discrete Cost Sharing Model with Technological Cooperation

This paper proposes a setting that allows for technological cooperation in the cost sharing model. Dealing with discrete demands, we study two properties: Additivity and Dummy. We show that these properties are insuffcient to guarantee a unit-flow representation similar to that of Wang (1999). To obtain a characterization of unit flows, we strengthen the Dummy axiom and introduce a property that requires the cost share of every agent to be nondecreasing in the incremental costs generated by their demand. Finally, a fairness requirement as to the compensation of technological cooperation is examined.