Simplification of Shapley value for cooperative games via minimum carrier

Shapley value is one of the most fundamental concepts in cooperative games. This paper investigates the calculation of the Shapley value for cooperative games and establishes a new formula via carrier. Firstly, a necessary and sufficient condition is presented for the verification of carrier, based on which an algorithm is worked out to find the unique minimum carrier. Secondly, by virtue of the properties of minimum carrier, it is proved that the profit allocated to dummy players (players which do not belong to the minimum carrier) is zero, and the profit allocated to players in minimum carrier is only determined by the minimum carrier. Then, a new formula of the Shapley value is presented, which greatly reduces the computational complexity of the original formula, and shows that the Shapley value only depends on the minimum carrier. Finally, based on the semi-tensor product (STP) of matrices, the obtained new formula is converted into an equivalent algebraic form, which makes the new formula convenient for calculation via MATLAB.