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04/28/2004 11:03 PM by Bin; question about game theory

I'm trying to use game theory to solve a problem that can described as follows:

A buyer wants to assemble a work. The whole work is composed of n pieces, which are owned by n people (one person has one piece). The buyer has to buy all these pieces to assemble the work, and he then tries to make a deal with each owner. If there is one person who refuses the deal, then all the deals will fail. That is, if the buyer can't buy all the pieces, he won't buy one at all. Each piece is worth different amount of money, and this value is only known to the owner (a type/secret), and the owner is willing to sell it only if the payoff can cover the value. The buyer now tries to spend as less money as possible to buy all of them (and there is probably an up limit on the amount of money he's willing to pay, and this up limit is a secret to the buyer). And the owners are selfish too. They try to make as much benefit as possible.

Now my question is: is there any game theory model that can possibly solve this problem? Any hint will be appreciated!

Bin [Manage messages]