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Game theory is the mathematical theory to analyze the behavior of rational decisionmakers in both cooperative and strategic interactive situations. It aims to resolve these situations by developing mathematical models and applying mathematical tools to provide insights in the interactive decision-making process. This dissertation studies the theoretical model of a transferable utility game with limited cooperation possibilities as well as altruistic equilibrium concepts for the model of a strategic game. Furthermore, this dissertation deals with several interactive allocation and operations research problems related to claims, sequencing and purchasing situations in which both cooperative and strategic approaches play a role.

This dissertation contributes to a better understanding of fair allocation rules and their properties by studying egalitarian principles in models for allocation problems. The first part builds upon the foundations of bankruptcy problems with nontransferable utility. There, claimants have individual utility claims on an estate which is expressed in a set of attainable utility allocations. Bankruptcy rules prescribe for any bankruptcy problem an efficient and feasible payoff allocation. An egalitarian alternative for the proportional rule in this context is the constrained relative equal awards rule, which allocates payoffs as relatively equal as possible provided that no claimants are allocated more than their claims. The second part focusses on the incorporation of egalitarianism in cooperative games. There, players collectively gain revenues while taking into account the possibility to act in coalitions. An egalitarian negotiation procedure models how players iteratively take their coalitional egalitarian opportunities into consideration. A new and general solution concept based on the result of this procedure can be considered as a trade-off between egalitarianism and coalitional rationality. The third part of this dissertation is devoted to communication situations which arise when the players of a cooperative game are subject to cooperation restrictions as modeled by an undirected graph. This part analyzes the decomposition of network communication games into unanimity games and introduces a general class of network control values.

This thesis covers various research topics involving cooperative game theory, a mathematical tool to analyze the cooperative behavior within a group of players. The focus is mainly on interrelations between operations research and cooperative game theory by analyzing specific types of cooperative joint optimization problems induced by network structures. In particular, this thesis considers minimum coloring problems and one-machine sequencing situations together with its related games. Further, it studies the problem of computing the influence of a neuronal structure in a brain network.

This dissertation deals with two topics that arise when transportation companies cooperate. The first chapters of this dissertation focus on a cooperation structure used in practice. In this structure, the companies agree on a pricing mechanism for which each company can outsource orders to other members of the structure. The chapters analyze what the pricing mechanism should be and which orders a company should outsource. When cooperating, the companies often have less costs which result in gains. But how should these gains be divided over the companies? Cooperative game theory provides divisions. The focus of the second part is on a new proportional solution concept, the proportionate nucleolus, and a new bankruptcy rule, the clights rule.

In this dissertation, two topics are discussed. First, cooperation in resource allocation is considered. In resource allocation, resources are divided among collaborating agents who are characterized by individual monetary reward functions. Here assignments of resources are considered such that the total joint reward is maximized. Secondly, cooperation in a single-machine scheduling problem is discussed. For these scheduling problems the reordering of families of jobs with respect to an initial processing order is considered, such that the cost savings are maximized. For both topics, cooperative game theory is applied in order to allocate the resulting maximum total joint reward or maximum cost saving.

Three chapters of this dissertation deal with three different types of interactive purchasing situations, in which multiple buying organizations interact with similar (or possibly the same) suppliers for the procurement of the same commodity. Decisions to be made in interactive purchasing concern if and how to cooperate with other buying organizations. If so, one has to tackle the important question of how to allocate possible cost savings. And if not, how to interact with the supplier(s) on an individual strategic level, while taking into account the strategic behavior of the other purchasers.

The final chapter of this thesis extensively studies fall back equilibrium. This equilibrium concept is a refinement of Nash equilibrium, which is the most fundamental solution concept in non-cooperative game theory.

There are many economic settings in which a group of agents wishes to undertake a joint enterprise in order to save costs. The success of such enterprises often relies on agreements on how to share the cost savings generated. The central issue of this monograph is to address cost allocation problems arising from sequencing problems and connection problems. Sequencing problems consider a group of agents who are waiting to be served in a facility and focuses on the problem of the allocation of the cost savings that can be obtained by switching from an initial service order to an optimal one. Connection problems consider the cost allocation problems arising from situations in which a group of agents wishes to collaborate and jointly invest in the construction or the maintenance of a common network. The methods we use in this monograph to analyze the cost allocation problems arising from sequencing and connection problems mainly rely on models of cooperative transferable utility games.

This thesis contains essays on the service economy. The issues studied in the essays are multifaceted. The main themes of stability, governance, and effectiveness are recurrent in different contexts: relational activities, group cooperation, country-level management and a very specific case of health care provision. The methodological tools employed are varied, too. In the theoretical essays, contributions are made to the literature on network and endogenous coalition formation. The empirical essays employ linear and non-linear regression models and use aggregate as well as micro-level data.

Game theory is the mathematical tool to study cooperation and competition. Since the beginnings of operations research and game theory both fields have been closely related. This thesis further investigates this relationship. Costs or rewards sharing problems arising from scheduling problems, traveling salesman problems and project management are investigated within the framework of game theory. Refinements of the set of optimal solutions of linear programming problems are studied by making use of the relationship betweenof linear programming problems, linear complementarity problems, and matrix games. Finally, competitive environments, i.e. bimatrix games for which some appealing properties of matrix games are kept, are analyzed.

This thesis deals with various models of cooperation in networks and scheduling. The main focus is how the benefits of this cooperation should be divided among the participating individuals. A major part of this analysis is concerned with stability of the cooperation. In addition, allocation rules are investigated, as well as properties of the underlying situations and games.

Cooperation and compensation are two important and well-linked issues in economics. The central question in cooperation is how to share the joint gains among participating players. Compensation is a specific aspect of surplus sharing problems providing incentives for agents to sacrifice their own direct interests to obtain higher payoffs for the coalition as a whole. This thesis first introduces and analyses a new solution concept, the consensus value, for cooperative games with transferable utility in characteristic function form and generalises it to partition function form games. These ideas and concepts are used to analyse several problems of loss compensation and surplus sharing: the general framework of project-allocation situations and the problem of externality-associated compensations within the new model of primeval games. Finally, transition by compensation is analysed in the framework of transition economies and, in particular, in the reform process of China.

This thesis deals with various models of cooperation, including games with transferable utility, games with nontransferable utility, bankruptcy situations, communication situations, spillover games and sequencing situations. The focus is on analysing rules for dividing the profits of cooperation. This analysis is performed in terms of properties that one might require of such an allocation mechanism. In addition, properties of the underlying situations and games are studied.

Game theory is a mathematical theory that can model and analyse cooperation between individuals. In this thesis, which consists of two parts, game theory is used to study the cooperative behaviour of agents in several situations. Part I of this thesis provides analysis of several problems from operations research in a cooperative setting. These problems are linear production problems, assignment problems, cooperative behaviour of agents is studied when at least one of them is facing uncertainty. Special attention is paid to situations where uncertainty arises from informational deficiencies and to cooperative games with random payoffs.

In many real-life situations where individuals work together in a joint project, joint costs (or profits) occur which have to be shared. The central problem of cost sharing is the allocation of costs in a 'just' way among the participants. Examples are numerous and range from setting fees for the use of a common facility such as (tele)communication networks, water supply systems, power plants, airports and transit systems, to the allocation of joint overhead costs of a firm among its divisions. It is the central issue of this monograph to address the problem of sharing the cost of a particular technology by a group of agents with equal access rights and unequal demands, in the presence of variable returns. Inspired by ideas from game theory and the (axiomatic) literature on distributive justice, this thesis considers solution concepts for homogeneous and heterogeneous cost sharing problems. The first part of the thesis discusses (continuous) cooperative production problems, whereas the second part is devoted to (discrete) cost sharing problems involved with network exploitation.

Game theory is a mathematical theory for analyzing strategic interaction between decision makers. This thesis covers two game-theoretic topics. The first part of this thesis deals with potential games: noncooperative games in which the information about the goals of the separate players that is required to determine equilibria, can be aggregated into a single function. The structure of different types of potential games is investigated. Congestion problems and the financing of public goods through voluntary contributions are studied in this framework. The second part of the thesis abandons the common assumption that each player is guided by a single goal. It takes into account players who are guided by several, possibly conflicting, objective functions.

Cooperative game theory is a mathematical tool to analyze situations involving several individuals who can obtain certain benefits by cooperating. The main questions this theory addresses are who will cooperate with whom and how will the corresponding benefits be divided. Most results of cooperative game theory, however, only apply to cases where these benefits are deterministic. In this thesis we abandon this assumption and allow for stochastic benefits. Examples of such situations can be found in linear production situations, sequencing and financial markets. The aim of this work is then to develop a theory on games with stochastic payoffs using traditional game theory as a guideline

This thesis deals with interactive behavior in conflict situations. The first chapters consider several issues in relation to bankruptcy theory. Thereafter, several operations research problems are modeled within the framework of cooperative game theory. The main focus is on what is optimal for a group of cooperating players and how to divide cost savings or benefits achieved by cooperation. Finally, the last chapter is about non-cooperative game theory, treating properness and protectiveness in two person multicriteria games.