On the number of blocks required to access the coalition structure core

This article shows that, for any transferable utility game in coalitional form with nonempty coalition structure core, the number of steps required to switch from a payoff configuration out of the coalition structure core to a payoff configuration in the coalition structure core is less than or equal to (n*n+4n)/4, where n is the cardinality of the player set. This number considerably improves the upper bound found so far by Koczy and Lauwers (2004).