Computing desirable partitions in additively separable hedonic games

An important aspect in systems of multiple autonomous agents is the exploitation of synergies via coalition formation. Additively separable hedonic games are a fundamental class of coalition formation games in which each player has a value for any other player and the value of a coalition to a particular player is simply the sum of the values he assigns to the members of his coalition. In this paper, we consider a number of solution concepts from cooperative game theory, welfare theory, and social choice theory as criteria for desirable partitions in hedonic games. We then conduct a detailed computational analysis of computing, checking the existence of, and verifying stable, fair, optimal, and popular partitions for additively separable hedonic games.