Potentials in cooperative TU-games

This paper is devoted to the study of solutions for cooperative TU-games which admit a potential function, such as the potential associated with the Shapley value (introduced by Hart and Mas-Colell). We consider the finite case and the finite type continuum. Several characterizations of this family are offered and, as a main result, it is shown that each of these solutions can be obtained by applying the Shapley value to an appropriately modified game. We also study the relationship of the potential with the noncooperative potential games, introduced by Monderer and Shapley, for the multilinear case in the continuum finite type setting. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.