Approximations of solution concepts of cooperative games

Abstract

The computation of a solution concept of a cooperative game usually depends on values of all coalitions. However, in some applications, values of some of the coalitions might be unknown due to various reasons. We introduce a method to approximate standard solution concepts based only on partial information given by a so called incomplete game. We demonstrate the ideas on the class of minimal incomplete games. Approximations are derived for different solution concepts including the Shapley value, the nucleolus, or the core. We show explicit formulas for approximations of some of the solution concepts and show how the approximability differs based on additional information about the game.