Assignment Games Satisfy the CoMa-Property

A balanced game satisfies the CoMa-property if and only if the extreme points of its core are marginal vectors. In this note we prove that assignment games satisfy the CoMa-property. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C71, C78.     

The local best response criterion: An epistemic approach to equilibrium refinement

The standard refinement criteria for extensive form games, including subgame perfect, perfect, perfect Bayesian, sequential, and proper, reject important classes of reasonable Nash equilibria and accept many unreasonable Nash equilibria. This paper develops a new refinement criterion, based on epistemic game theory, that captures the concept of a Nash equilibrium that is plausible when players are rational. I call this the local best response (LBR) criterion. This criterion is conceptually simpler than the standard refinement criteria because it does not depend on out-of-equilibrium, counterfactual, or passage to the limit arguments. The LBR is also informationally richer because it clarifies the epistemic conditions that render a Nash equilibrium reasonable. The LBR criterion appears to render the traditional refinement criteria superfluous.     

European policies and regulation

This article describes the three main objectives of the European Community's programme of regulatory reform in the telecommunication sector: liberalization, the separation of regulatory and operational functions, and the realization of scale economies. Particular attention is paid to the new Directive on Open Network Provision.     

EARNINGS MANAGEMENT AND CORPORATE OWNERSHIP STRUCTURE: AN EXAMINATION OF EXTRAORDINARY ITEM REPORTING

This study examines the empirical relation between a three-way classification of corporate ownership structure and earnings management through the use of extraordinary item (EI) reporting. The EI reporting decisions examined are those made during 1960-1966, a time period when US reporting standards allowed considerable management discretion with respect to both the classification of EIs and their placement in the financial statements (i.e., income. versus retained earnings statement). Overall, the results provide strong support for income-increasing behavior by non-owner managers. Importantly, the results also suggest that the three-way ownership classification scheme used in this study is superior to the dichotomous owner-controlled/managercontrolled classification typically used in accounting studies.