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Concept

Marginal contribution

What a player adds to a coalition on joining it — the value of the group with them, less its value without. Averaging it over every order in which the players could have arrived is the Shapley value, and the four conditions that pick out that average are conditions on the averaging rather than on the contributions.

Named by 4 essays across one field — each of them below, with the objects they name alongside it.

Every order of arrival for three partners, and what each player adds. A table with one row per order in which the players could arrive, giving what each adds to the group already present, and the average of each column as that player's share.

The order everybody arrives in

Three people jointly earn nine, and the question is what each is owed. Ask instead what each adds on walking into a room the others are already in, average that over every order they could have arrived in, and four modest conditions leave no other answer.

applied · shapley value Drop one condition, and something else satisfies the rest. A column for each of the four conditions, holding a sharing rule that breaks that one and keeps the other three, with the split each rule gives on a stated four-player game.

None of the four conditions is spare

Four conditions pick out one sharing rule. The half that is usually shown is that they are enough; the other half is that each is needed — drop any one and a different rule satisfies the rest, so the list cannot be shortened.

applied · shapley value A share of the votes, and a share of the power. Three weighted assemblies, each with the members' share of the votes beside their share of the power counted two independent ways.

A share of the votes is not a share of the power

Give three members four, four and one vote, with five needed to pass. Every winning coalition needs exactly two of them, so all three have equal power — and one of them holds a ninth of the votes.

applied · shapley value Every order of arrival for three users of one shared capacity, and what each player adds. A table with one row per order in which the players could arrive, giving what each adds to the group already present, and the average of each column as that player's share.

Sharing a cost that is not the sum of its parts

Three users need capacities three, six and twelve of one shared thing, and serving any group costs the largest of them. Averaging what each adds over every order of arrival divides the bill — and for this family the average collapses to a rule anybody could apply by hand.

applied · shapley value

Named alongside it

The objects these essays reach for when they reach for this one.

Cooperative gameShapley valueFairnessSymmetryAdditivityAirport problemAllocationAxiomAxiomatic characterisationBanzhaf indexClosed formCoalition

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