We study coalition formation in "real time", a situation in which coalition formation is intertwined with the ongoing receipt of pay-offs. Agreements are assumed to be permanently binding: They can only be altered with the full consent of existing signatories. For characteristic function games we prove that equilibrium processes-whether or not these are history dependent-must converge to efficient absorbing states. For three-player games with externalities each player has enough veto power that a general efficiency result can be established. However, there exist four-player games in which all Markov equilibria are inefficient from every initial condition, despite the ability to write permanently binding agreements. Copyright 2007 The Review of Economic Studies Limited.
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Volume (Year): 74 (2007) Issue (Month): 4 (October) Pages: 1125-1147 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
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