Issue: 2014/Vol.24/No.2, Pages 97-122

AN APPLICATION OF THE REPRESENTATIONS OF SYMMETRIC GROUPS TO CHARACTERIZING SOLUTIONS OF GAMES IN PARTITION FUNCTION FORM

Joss Sánchez-Pérez

Full paper (PDF)    RePEC

Cite as: J. Sánchez-Pérez. An application of the representations of symmetric groups to characterizing solutions of games in partition function form. Operations Research and Decisions 2014: 24(2), 97-122. DOI 10.5277/ord140205

Abstract
A different perspective from the more “traditional” approaches to studying solutions of games in partition function form has been presented. We provide a decomposition of the space of such games under the action of the symmetric group, for the cases with three and four players. In particular, we identify all the irreducible subspaces that are relevant to the study of linear symmetric solutions. We then use such a decomposition to derive a characterization of the class of linear and symmetric solutions, as well as of the class of linear, symmetric and efficient solutions.

Keywords: games in partition function form, value, representation theory, symmetric group

Received: 6 July 2013    Accepted: 8 March 2014