Maximal symmetry and the Nash solution

The Nash Bargaining Solution is characterised by using the new axiom of Maximal Symmetry in place of Nash's Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives and Symmetry. This axiom expresses the idea that a fair arbitrator should treat symmetric alternatives in the same way, subject to the feasibility constraint. An advantage of the proposed characterisations is that they are valid on a wide set of domains, in particular domains including, or consisting of, non-convex problems. Received: 16 March 1998/Accepted: 13 October 1998