@InProceedings{axtell02a,
  author =	 {Robert L. Axtell},
  title =	 {Non-Cooperative Dynamics of Multi-Agent Teams},
  googleid =	 {0cTDrnE6hkcJ:scholar.google.com/},
  booktitle =	 {Proceedings of the First Intenational Joint
                  Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent
                  Systems},
  pages =	 {1082--1089},
  year =	 2002,
  address =	 {Bologna, Italy},
  publisher =	 {{ACM} Press, New York, NY},
  abstract =	 {Results on the formation of multi-agent teams are
                  reviewed and extended. Conditions are specified
                  under which it is individually rational for agents
                  to spontaneously form coalitions in order to engage
                  in collective action. In a cooperative setting the
                  formation of such groups is to be expected. Here we
                  show that in non-cooperative environments presumably
                  a more realistic context for a variety of both human
                  and software agents self-organized coalitions are
                  capable of extracting welfare improvements. The Nash
                  equilibria of these coalitional formation games are
                  demonstrated to always exist and be unique. Certain
                  free rider problems in such group formation dynamics
                  lead to the possibility of dynamically unstable Nash
                  equilibria, depending on the nature of intra-group
                  compensation and coalition size. Yet coherent groups
                  can still form, if only temporarily, as demonstrated
                  by computational experiments. Such groups of agents
                  can be either long-lived or transient. The
                  macroscopic structure of these emergent 'bands' of
                  agents is stationary in sufficiently large
                  populations, despite constant adaptation at the
                  agent level. It is argued that assumptions
                  concerning attainment of agent-level (Nash)
                  equilibrium, so ubiquitous in conventional economics
                  and game theory, are difficult to justify
                  behaviorally and highly restrictive theoretically,
                  and are thus unlikely to serve either as fertile
                  design objectives or robust operating principles for
                  realistic multi-agent systems.},
  keywords =     {multiagent game-theory coalitions},
  url =		 {http://jmvidal.cse.sc.edu/library/axtell02a.pdf},
  comment =	 {masrg},
  cluster = 	 {5153871083509892305}
}