Lawrence D. Brown, Gordon D. Richardson, Steven J. Schwager, An Information Interpretation of Financial Analyst Superiority in Forecasting Earnings, Journal of Accounting Research, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Spring, 1987), pp. 49-67

In this paper a theorem is developed giving necessary and sufficient conditions for the uniqueness of homogeneous product Cournot equilibria. The result appears to be the strongest to date and the first to involve both necessity and sufficiency. The theorem states than an equilibrium is unique if and only if the determinant of the Jacobian of marginal profits for firms producing positive output is positive at all equilibria. The result applies to the case where profit functions are twice differentiable and pseudoconcave, industry output can be bounded, the above Jacobian is non-singular at equilibria, and marginal profits are strictly negative for non-producing firms. The proof uses fixed point index theory from differential topology.

This paper examines possible motives for and consequences of voluntary corporate liquidations. Specifically, the procedural and tax differences between voluntary liquidations and other control-changing transaction devices are analyzed. An empirical investigation of successful liquidations shows that the announcement of liquidation reduces the risk of liquidating shares, that the shareholders receive substantial gains from successful liquidations, and that the average gains to the acquiring shareholders are not significantly different from zero. These findings suggest that the liquidating firms' assets have been underutilized before liquidation and that voluntary liquidations lead to higher-valued reallocations of corporate resources.

The paper deals with infinite horizon optimization problems. The existence of optimal solutions is obtained as a consequence of an asymptotic growth condition. We also exhibit finite horizon approximates that yield upper and lower bounds for the optimal values and whose optimal solutions converge to the long-term optimal trajectories.