This introduction presents the theme of this volume, the rationale for it, and the history of the conference series from which it originated. It provides also a short description of the papers included.

We look at the basic applications of cooperative game theory to economic situations. These include bargaining and cooperative equilibria, especially as the number of players increases without bound. The core and the Shapley value are the fundamental tools for these applications. We consider the...

In this paper we introduce a new class of cooperative games. We define a characteristic function over the cycles of a digraph. We present a mathematical model for this situation and an axiomatic characterization of a solution for this class of cooperative games. This is introduced as a method to...

A cooperative TU game is said to posses a large core as defined by Sharkey [1982] if for every acceptable vector there is a smaller core vector in the game. This paper is devoted to characterization(s) of largeness of the core of a subclass of games known as k-convex games (containing the convex...

In context of the traditional Spence signaling model, the realization of a separating equilibrium ensures that each worker is allocated to the sector of the economy where they are most productive. Traditional analysis assumes, however, that the incremental returns to labor employment are...

A group of agents have claims on a resource, but there is not enough of the resource to honor all of the claims. How should it be divided? We survey the recent game theoretic approaches that have been followed in solving such "claims problems".

The aim of this paper is to analyze the interconnections between employment and unionization. We will also see how unemployment benefits drive the interplay of employment and unionization. The basic input into our model stems from cooperative game theory. Building on the Shapley value, several...

We address quality control of products undergoing multiple transshipment stages handled by different parties. Depending on the transportation modes, the stages may expose the products to hostile environments, such as extreme temperatures, which could influence quality. We incorporate the effect...

In the paper two-person nonzero-sum semi-infinite games with bounded payoffs are studied — both with countable and uncountable infinite strategy space. Under some concavity/convexity assumptions they are shown to possess ε-equilibria (equilibria) in strategies with supports consisting of at...

Considered here is direct exchange of production allowances or input factors. Motivated by practical modeling and compution, we suppose every owner or user of such items has a linear technology. The issue is whether competitive market equilibrium can be reached merely via iterated bilateral...