Achim Hagen - Article in Games 2020, 11(1), 3
Coalition formation is often analysed in an almost non-cooperative way, as a two-stage game that consists of a first stage comprising membership actions and a second stage with physical actions, such as the provision of a public good. We formalize this widely used approach for the case where actions are simultaneous in each stage and provide various theoretical results, in particular, for cartel games. Numerous concrete examples are included and we discuss research strategies to obtain further results about equilibrium coalition structures with abstract physical games.
Hagen, A., P. von Mouche, and H. P. Weikard (2020). The Two-Stage Game Approach to Coalition Formation: Where We Stand and Ways to Go. Games 11(1), 3. https://doi.org/10.3390/g11010003 .