Nonsymmetric variants of the prekernel and the prenucleolus

A solution on a class of TU games that satisfies the axioms of the pre-nucleolus or -kernel except the equal treatment property and is single valued for two-person games, is a nonsymmetric pre-nucleolus (NSPN) or -kernel (NSPK). We investigate the NSPKs and NSPNs and their relations to the positive prekernel and to the positive core. It turns out that any NSPK is a subsolution of the positive prekernel. Moreover, we show that an arbitrary NSPK, when applied to a TU game, intersects the set of preimputations whose dissatisfactions coincide with the dissatisfactions of an arbitrary element of any other NSPK applied to this game. This result also provides a new proof of sufficiency of the characterizing conditions for NSPKs introduced by Orshan (Non-symmetric prekernels, discussion paper 60. Center for Rationality, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1994 ). Any NSPN belongs to “its” NSPK. Several classes of NSPNs are presented, all of them being subsolutions of the positive core. We show that any NSPN is a subsolution of the positive core provided that it satisfies the equal treatment property on an infinite subset of the universe of potential players. Moreover, we prove that, for any game whose prenucleolus is in its anticore, any NSPN coincides with the prenucleolus. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2012