Comparing Models of Strategic Choice: The Role of Uncertainty and Signaling

e-mail: wand{at}stanford.edu Testing the fit of competing equilibrium solutions to extensiveform games crucially depends on assumptions about the distributionof player types. To illustrate the importance of these assumptionsfor differentiating standard statistical models of strategicchoice, I draw on a game previously analyzed by Lewis and Schultz(2003). The differences that they highlight between a pair ofperfect Bayesian equilibrium and quantal response equilibriummodels are not produced by signaling and updating dynamics asclaimed, but are instead produced by different assumptions aboutthe distribution of player types. The method of analysis developedand the issues raised are applicable to a broad range of structuralmodels of conflict and bargaining.     

The analysis of an intracerebral hematoma for drugs of abuse

Toxicological investigations were performed on an intracerebral hematoma, antemortem blood, and postmortem blood of an individual who was found unresponsive in his home. The hematoma was found to have ethanol at a concentration of 0.05% (w/v), and benzoylecgonine (a cocaine metabolite) was also confirmed at a concentration of 0.43 mg/L by specific analysis using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). These results enabled the pathologist to record the cause of death as intracerebral hemorrhage due to acute cocaine intoxication.     

Political critique in Nigerian video films

Video films have established themselves as the dominant formof Nigerian popular culture, with more than 1,000 titles beingreleased every year. They arose during politically tumultuoustimes but have had a reputation for being studiously commercialand avoiding political subjects. This essay attempts to revisethis conventional wisdom by exploring three video genres thatembody forms of political critique: the hardy genre of filmsabout traditional rulership; the crime thriller, with severalvariants; and family melodrama, which tends to infiltrate allother genres. It then surveys some films with directly politicalsubjects made since the end of military rule in 1999.     

Justifying Age Discrimination

The characteristics of age discrimination as provided for inthe Employment Equality (Age) Discrimination Regulations setit apart from existing anti-discrimination schemes. The ambitof the Regulations is limited to the employment field. Withinthis area, the legislation does not simply seek to identifya characteristic of a specific minority group and then removethat factor from the decision-making process. Instead, workingfrom a quality common to all (age), the Regulations seek onlyto prevent reliance on it for purposes that are ‘illegitimate’or if the consequences of doing so are ‘disproportionate’.This is necessary: first because the Regulations do not seekmerely to protect discrete age groups, and in practice the interestsof persons of different age may well be in conflict; secondlybecause many decision-making criteria that appear objectiveare in substance, age-related. In order to sort ‘bad’discrimination from ‘good’ discrimination a notionof substantive equality must exist. The Regulations themselvesgive little indication of what equality should mean. There isno existing consensus from which the answer can be drawn, andthe rationales that have underpinned previous anti-discriminationlegislation are not easily transposed to age discrimination.The practical application of the justification defence containedin Regulation 3 will shape the substantive meaning of equalityin this area. This article seeks to identify what the properapproach should be to the provisions of Regulation 3, and suggeststhat this should be derived from considerations of transparentdecision-making, and the need to respect the dignity of theindividual.