PROBABILISTIC COALITION STRUCTURE THEORIES - AN EMPIRICAL-COMPARISON IN 4-PERSON SUPERADDITIVE SIDEPAYMENT GAMES

This article reports a comparative test of the central-union theory in four-person sidepayment games. Predictions by two variants of central -union theory (CU-1 and CU-2) are tested vis-a-vis predictions by thre e other solutions (the equal excess model, the Myerson-Shapley solutio n, and the kernel). With respect to players' payoffs, results show tha t CU-1, CU-2, equal excess, and Myerson-Shapley models have essentiall y equal predictive accuracy and that all of these are superior to the kernel in the test games. However, when coalition structure probabilit y predictions are incorporated in the test, both CU-1 and CU-2 emerge as more accurate than all the other models tested.