This paper discusses the decentralization of production and cost decisions in a multidivisional firm via divisional performance measurement systems based on accounting information. The model firm has a single producing division that supplies goods to several consuming divisions for further processing and sale on external markets. Production is assumed to be characterized, in the long run, by constant returns to scale, and, in the short run, by constant unit variable cost up to a fixed capacity, which imposes a short‐run fixed cost. It is also assumed that the final products sold on external markets face downward sloping demand. The firm's accounting information system transmits a comprehensive record of quantities, revenues, and costs resulting from realized transactions, including the classification of costs between fixed and variable, but transmits no information concerning unrealized production, cost, and revenue possibilities. The paper shows that such information is not sufficient to motivate short‐run profit maximization, which requires the optimal allocation of scarce producing division capacity among the competing demands of the consuming division. However, in the long run, a more positive result is obtained. A class of transfer price mechanisms, termed profit‐sharing systems , leads net‐income maximizing division managers to optimal production decisions and cost ‐efficient technology choices in the long run. Moreover, it is shown that the profit‐sharing transfer price is equal to the “arm's‐length” negotiated price determined by the Nash bargaining solution. Résumé. L'auteur traite de la décentralisation des décisions relatives à la fabrication et aux coûts dans une entreprise à divisions multiples, par l'intermédiaire de systèmes de mesure du rendement divisionnaire fondés sur l'information comptable. L'entreprise type possède une seule division de fabrication qui approvisionne plusieurs divisions consommatrices en produits intermédiaires qui sont retraités par elles et vendus sur les marchés extérieurs. L'auteur suppose que la fabrication se caractérise à long terme par des rendements d'échelle constants, et à court terme par des coûts variables unitaires constants au regard d'une capacité établie qui suppose un coût fixe à court terme. Il pose également l'hypothèse que la demande pour les produits finis vendus sur les marchés extérieurs connaît un déclin. Le système d'information comptable de l'entreprise comporte un registre complet des renseignements concernant les quantités fabriquées, les produits d'exploitation et les coûts relatifs aux opérations ainsi conclues, avec classification des coûts fixes et varibles, mais ne livre aucune information relative aux possibilités de fabrication, de coûts et de produits d'exploitation auxquelles l'entreprise a renoncé. L'auteur montre que cette information ne suffit pas à motiver la maximisation des bénéfices à court terme, qui exige l'affectation optimale des capacités de fabrication limitées de la division de fabrication entre les divisions consommatrices dont les demandes sont en concurrence. À long terme, l'on obtient cependant un résultat plus positif. En effet, un ensemble de mécanismes touchant l'établissement des prix de cession, qu l'on appelle les systèmes d'intéressement, amène les gestionnaires qui cherchent à maximiser le bénéfice net de leur division à des décisions optimales de fabrication et à des choix économiques rationnels en matière de technologie. On constate en outre que le prix de cession en système d'intéressement est équivalent au prix négocié « sans lien de dépendance » déterminé selon la solution de négociation de Nash.

This paper describes several learning processes which converge, with probability one, to the rational expectations (Bayesian-Nash) equilibrium of a stationary linear game. The learning processes include a test for convergence to equilibrium, and a method for changing the parameters of the process when non-convergence is indicated. This self-stabilization property eliminates the need to impose stability conditions on the economic environment. Convergence to equilibrium is proved for two types of self-stabilizing learning mechanisms: a centralized forecasting mechanism and a decentralized strategy adjustment process.

This paper is concerned with the design of non-cooperative game forms for economic decision problems. A decision problem is presented which admits non-dictatorial game forms with the following properties: Nash equilibria exist and all Nash equilibrium outcomes are Pareto optimal; or dominant strategies exist and all dominant strategy equilibria are Pareto optimal; but not both. This is, any (non-dictatorial) game form whose Nash equilibria are well behaved does not have dominant strategies, and any game form with well behaved dominant strategy equilibria must have at least one non-optimal non-dominant strategy Nash equilibrium.

Economic theorists have interpreted the "efficient markets hypothesis" to assert that equilibrium asset prices reveal all decision-relevant information in the market. This paper establishes conditions on investors' utility functions of future wealth which are necessary for the efficient markets hypothesis to be satisfied and be robust to slight perturbations of endowments and the joint distribution of current information and future asset values. The main result states that over the relevant range of future wealth values, there are three possible cases: (i) all investors are risk-neutral; (ii) modulo a change in the wealth origin, each investor has constant relative risk aversion with the same constant for all investors; or (iii) all investors have constant absolute risk aversion.

Events by Grunberg and Modigliani [3]. Economic forecasts are made to be used, and decisions based on them may affect their ultimate realization. Grunberg and Modigliani explored this problem in a model in which future aggregate supply was influenced by current decisions based on the predicted future price. They applied the Brouwer fixed point theorem to show that if the future equilibrium price is a bounded continuous function of its currently predicted value, a exists. In [8] this result was placed in a temporary equilibrium context and the notation of a correct prediction was extended to include probabilistic predictions based on estimation procedures. Again, a fixed point theorem was applied to show that the causal influence of a forecast does not always invalidate it. Although this result is a reassuring and necessary first step, the analysis is confined to a single realization of the exogeneous variables. Thus a forecast is a single point or probability distribution rather than a function or conditional distribution whose domain is the space of observable variables. Of course, if the complete exogenous specification of the economy is observable, this is no restriction since the theorems could be applied separately to each realization. However, it is more likely that the space of observable variables contains a mixture of exogenous and endogenous variables without containing the complete set of either. Then if the exogenous variables are generated stochastically, the results of the above mentioned papers do not guarantee the existence of a statistically forecasting procedure. What is needed are general equilibrium versions of the results in [10], where, in particular, the statistically forecast of a future price is derived as a function of current and past prices. It would seem natural to approach this as a fixed point problem in the space of joint distributions of the observable variables and the

In recent studies of the temporary competitive equilibrium, agents' current decision correspondences are derived using a standard recursion procedure, which is only applicable when the planning horizon is finite. This paper presents a general derivation of the current decision rule without restrictions on the time horizon or the number of states of the world in any period. It is shown that if utility is continuous in the product topology and if, in each period, expectations and the current constraint correspondence are continuous, then the current decision rule is upper semi-continuous. This result is obtained by associating with each current decision a set of feasible future plans. The expected utility of a current decision is then the expected utility of the best feasible future plan. The feasible future plan correspondence is shown to be continuous and the Maximum Theorem completes the proof.

Over the past decade, Sanford Grossman's contributions to the economics of information have significantly altered the way economists think about rational expectations. Here his articles are collected in one place, providing a uniform framework for understanding how prices convey information in securities markets. Grossman elaborates a new model of economic equilibrium that casts a dual role for prices both as constraints that affect the immediate costs or benefits of acts and as conveyers of information about the probable future costs and benefits of those acts. He points to the Wall Street panic of October 1987 as an example of the informational role of prices where volatility actually represented sophisticated trading strategies by relatively uninformed individuals.

Non-manipulable direct revelation social choice functions are characterized for societies where the space of alternatives is a euclidean space and all voters have separable star-shaped preferences with a global optimum. If a non-manipulable choice function satisfies a weak unanmity-respecting condition (which is equivalent to having an unrestricted range) then it will depend only on voters' ideal points. Further, such a choice function will decompose into a product of one-dimensional mechanisms in the sense that each coordinate of the chosen point depends only on the respective coordinate of the voters' ideal points. Each coordinate function will also be non-manipulable and respect unanimity. Such one-dimensional mechanisms are uncompromising in the sense that voters cannot take an extreme position to influence the choice to their advantage. Two characterizations of uncompromising choice functions are presented. One is in terms of a continuity condition, the other in terms of “phantom voters” i.e. those points which are chosen which are not any voter's ideal point. There are many such mechanisms which are not dictatorial. However, if differentiability is required of the choice function, this forces it to be either constant or dictatorial. In the multidimensional case, non-separability of preferences leads to dictatorship, even if preferences are restricted to be quadratic.