Decomposition of the space of TU-games, Strong Transfer Invariance and the Banzhaf value

Abstract

We provide a new and concise characterization of the Banzhaf value on the (linear) space of all TU-games on a fixed player set by means of two transparent axioms. The first one is the well-known Dummy player axiom. The second axiom, called Strong transfer invariance, indicates that a player's payoff is invariant to a transfer of worth between two coalitions he or she belongs to. To prove this result we derive direct-sum decompositions of the space of all TU-games. We show that, for each player, the space of all TU-games is the direct sum of the subspace of TU-games where this player is dummy and the subspace spanned by the TU-games used to construct the transfers of worth. This decomposition method has several advantages listed as concluding remarks