In cooperative games, one generally assumes that the agents know exactly
the joint (monetary) gains that can be achieved by any possible
coalition of cooperating agents. In reality, however, only little is
known with certainty. This does not necessarily imply that traditional
cooperative game theory cannot be applied in practical situations, for
in various cases knowledge of the expected gains suffices. In many other
cases, however, it is just the sharing of risk that is beneficial. Joint
ventures, for instance, exist since cooperation reduces the risk of the
investment for the individual parties. Since the existing models fail to
incorporate such risks, they are not suitable for analyzing cooperative
decision-making under risk. This book aims to rectify this deficiency by
discussing a model of cooperative games with random payoffs.