A Cooperative Solution to Two-Player Strategic Games
 

Abstract: We consider finite two-player strategic games with sidepayments.  We assign a "strategically cooperative value" to each player.  This value generalizes the notion of value from zero-sum games to general-sum games.  Our solution decomposes any game into the sum of a cooperative game and a competitive game.  The cooperative component is a team game, i.e., a game of common payoffs.  The competitive game is a zero-sum game.  We give simple axioms which are uniquely satisfied by the proposed value.

This is joint work with Ehud Kalai.
 

Biography: Adam Tauman Kalai did his graduate work at Carnegie Mellon University under the supervision of Avrim Blum. He then was a postdoc at MIT where his research interests included machine learning theory, randomized algorithms, and game theory. Prior to joining the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, Kalai was an assistant professor at the Toyota Technological Institute in Chicago.

Adam Kalai