On merge properties of the Shapley value

Given a transferable utility game, where the players merge into subgroups described by a partition, we address the following question: under which conditions on the characteristic function and partition, merging is beneficial if the Shapley value is applied. Our results can be positioned among the search for well-defined classes of games where merging of players is possible without utility loss in case the Shapley value is chosen as the outcome of the game, and we will report on two of these classes of games arising from telecommunication problems.