Game Representations and Extensions of the Shapley Value

Abstract

We show that any cooperative game can be represented by an assignment of costly facilities to players, in which it is intuitively obvious how to allocate the total cost in an equitable manner. This equitable solution turns out to be the Shapley value of the game, and thus provides as an alternative justification of the value. Game representations also open the door for extending the Shapley value to situations where not all coalitions can form, provided those that can constitute a "semi-algebra"; or, more generally, a "hierarchy"; or, still more generally, have "full span".