A canonical axiomatic division of a joint surplus, giving each member their average marginal contribution across all orders of joining.
Shapley's 1953 value assigns each player their average marginal contribution across all orders of coalition formation, and is the unique rule satisfying efficiency, symmetry, the null-player property and additivity.
In practice
- Attributing revenue to marketing channels, and features to model predictions, both use it as the allocation satisfying those axioms.
- A three-person team splitting a bonus by average marginal contribution across every order of joining is doing arithmetic rather than negotiation.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Games & Strategic Interaction
- Essay
- What is provable, and what people actually do