A β-core existence result and its application to oligopoly markets

This paper establishes a p-core existence result in a large class of normal form TU (transferable utility) games. In the oligopoly markets of a homogeneous good, the TU p-core is always equal to the TU cu-core, and they are nonempty if all profit functions are continuous and concave. In a general game, the TU p-core is nonempty if (a) all strategy sets are compact and convex, (b) all payoff functions are continuous and concave, and (c) the game satisfies the strong separability. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C62, C71, C72. (C) 1999 Academic Press.