On the number of blocks required to access the core

Abstract

For any transferable utility game in coalitional form with nonempty core, we show that that the number of blocks required to switch from an imputation out of the core to an imputation in the core is less than or equal to n(n-1)/2, where n is the cardinality of the player set. This number considerably improves the upper bounds found so far by Koczy (2006) and Yang (2010). Our result relies on an altered version of the procedure proposed by Sengupta and Sengupta (1996). The use of the Davis-Maschler reduced-games is also pointed out.Core; excess function; dominance path; Davis-Maschler reduced-game