A Partial Order for Strictly Positive Coalitional Games and a Link from Risk Aversion to Cooperation

Abstract

We deal with coalitional games possessing strictly positive values. Individually rational allocations of such a game has clear fractional interpretations. Many concepts, including the long-existing core and other stability notions more recently proposed by Yang \cite{Y22}, can all be re-cast in this fractional mode. The latter allows a certain ranking between games, which we deem as in the sense of ``centripetality'', to imply a clearly describable shift in the games' stable solutions. %These trends would be preserved after the imposition of the restriction that fractions be positive as well. When coalitions' values are built on both random outcomes and a common positively homogeneous reward function characterizing players' enjoyments from their shares, the above link could help explain why aversion to risk often promotes cooperation.