III. CLASS I: CANONICAL COALITIONAL GAMES
A. Main Properties of Canonical Coalitional Games
Under the class of canonical coalitional games, we group the most popular category of games in coalitional game theory. Hence, this class pertains to the coalitional games tools that have been widely understood, thoroughly formalized, and have clear solution concepts. For classifying a game as canonical, the main requirements are as follows:
1) The coalitional game is in characteristic form (TU or NTU).
2) Cooperation, i.e., the formation of large coalitions, is never detrimental to any of the involved players. Hence,
in canonical games no group of players can do worse by cooperating, i.e., by joining a coalition, than by acting
non-cooperatively. This pertains to the mathematical property of superadditivity.
3) The main objectives of a canonical game are: (i)- To study the properties and stability of the grand coalition, i.e.,
the coalition of all the players in the game, and (ii)- to study the gains resulting from cooperation with negligible
or no cost, as well as the distribution of these gains in a fair manner to the players.
The first two conditions for classifying a game as canonical pertain to the mathematical properties of the game. First, any canonical game must be in characteristic form. Second, the canonical game must be superadditive, which is defined as