Noncooperative games of information sharing and investment : theories and applications

The thesis considers the effects of public policy with respect to disclosure on rivalrous competition in duopolies. Principal contributions to the stochastic oligopoly theories of information sharing include imbedding an investment stage in the standard noncooperative two-stage information sharing/output (pricing) games under a wide range of assumptions about effects of investment or distributions of returns, and investigating the extent to which altering the usual preference assumption to allow risk aversion may affect information choice. At an information sharing level, it is established that, besides being sensitive to the type of competition and the nature of information asymmetries, as previously reported in the literature, private incentives to disclose also depend importantly on both the impact of investment and risk preferences. In this regard, equilibrium levels of investment are shown to be affected nontrivially by variance effects from investment, risk attitude of decision makers, as well as the type of industry rivalry. Also characterized are the welfare orderings obtained as a consequence of these varying disclosure effects on the decisions and hence profits of competing firms. If alternative accounting practices are distinguishable along the informativeness dimension, then, at an abstract level, the analysis can be seen as approaching the study of many accounting issues from a distinctly different perspective than the familiar tax or wealth transfer viewpoints. The principal contributions to the accounting literature include identifying the impact of disclosure rules or rule changes on industry, consumers, and society as a whole, and offering insights to the accounting policy makers concerning the results of disclosure regulation.Business, Sauder School ofGraduat