On the Equal Division Core

The Equal Division Core (EDC) of a transferable utility cooperative game (TU game) is the set of efficient pay-off vectors for the grand coalition which are not blocked by the equal division allocation for any sub-coalition. Our objective is to provide an axiomatic characterization of the EDC as a solution of TU games.

This is revised version of a part of Chapt. 3 of my Ph.D. dissertation. Beginning with suggesting the problem, my supervisor Bhaskar Dutta extended his unstinting help in every step of this pursuit without which this work could not have been possible. I have also much benefitted from the comments and suggestions from the responsible editor, two anonymous referees, Hervé Moulin and seminar participants at Bilkent and Bonn Universities (especially from the detailed comments of Reinhard Selten). Of course, the shortcomings remaining are mine. Somdeb Lahiri, Anjan Mukherji and T. Yamato have been kind enough to make certain literature accessible to me.

Research fellowships from the Indian Statistical Institute and CNRS, France and hospitality at GEMMA, Universite de Caen are gratefully acknowledged.