On Concavification and Convex Games

Abstract

We propose a new geometric approach for the analysis of cooperative games. A cooperative game is viewed as a real valued function $u$ defined on a finite set of points in the unit simplex. We define the \emph{concavification} of $u$ on the simplex as the minimal concave function on the simplex which is greater than or equal to $u$. The concavification of $u$ induces a game which is the \emph{totally balanced cover} of the game. The concavification of $u$ is used to characterize well-known classes of games, such as balanced, totally balanced, exact and convex games. As a consequence of the analysis it turns out that a game is convex if and only if each one of its sub-games is exact.concavification, convex games, core, totally balanced, exact games