---
title: "Social Distance Games"
authors:
  - "Simina Brânzei"
  - "Kate Larson"
doi: "10.5591/978-1-57735-516-8/IJCAI11-027"
url: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2011/27"
pdf: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2011/0027.pdf"
venue: "Proceedings of the Twenty-Second International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence"
year: 2011
pages: "91-95"
track: ""
keywords:
---

# Social Distance Games

Simina Brânzei, Kate Larson

*Proceedings of the Twenty-Second International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence*, pages 91-95. DOI: [10.5591/978-1-57735-516-8/IJCAI11-027](https://doi.org/10.5591/978-1-57735-516-8/IJCAI11-027)

## Abstract

In this paper we introduce and analyze social distance games, a family of non-transferable utility coalitional games where an agent's utility is a measure of closeness to the other members of the coalition. We study both social welfare maximisation and stability in these games using a graph theoretic perspective. We use the stability gap to investigate the welfare of stable coalition structures, and propose two new solution concepts with improved welfare guarantees. We argue that social distance games are both interesting in themselves, as well as in the context of social networks.