An index of competitiveness and cooperativeness for normal-form games

We develop an index of competitiveness and cooperativeness that is based on the primitives of a normal-form game, i.e., players, strategies and payoffs. The index relies on the unique decomposition of a given game into a zero-sum game and a common interest game. The index decreases in the distance to its zero-sum part and increases in the distance to its common interest part. The comparative statics of our index coincide with economic intuition. The index also supports experimental findings in well-known classes of games in the sense that more cooperative and less competitive behavior correlates with lower values of the index.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)