The Consensus Value : A New Solution Concept for Cooperative Games

By generalizing the standard solution for 2-person games into n-person cases, this paper develops a new solution concept for cooperative games: the consensus value.We characterize the consensus value as the unique function that satisfies efficiency, symmetry, the quasi dummy property and additivity.By means of the transfer property, a second characterization is provided.By defining the stand-alone reduced game, a recursive formula for the value is established.We also show that this value is the average of the Shapley value and the equal surplus solution.Furthermore, we discuss a possible generalization.