The paper advocates and implements a new panel structure model to investigate the club convergence hypothesis. The model consists of a set of linear dynamic models that characterize the behavior of growth rates within each convergence club and a logistic regression that classifies these linear models. An EM algorithm is used to estimate the system by maximum likelihood and inference is conducte...

As a unique type of community-based organisation (CBO), local sporting clubs are typically run by volunteers who regularly carry out the playing, coaching and administrative roles that keep them functioning. Through a case study involving a New Zealand hockey association, this article examines the extent to which sporting clubs use Internet applications by examining their use of email (for comm...

We consider all players and clubs in top twenty world football leagues in the last fifteen seasons. The purpose of this paper is to reveal top football players and identify springboard clubs. To do that, we construct two separate weighted networks. Player collaboration network consists of players, that are connected to each other if they ever played together at the same club. In directed club t...

Historically, journal clubs have been used by the medical community to enhance an individual’s critical literature evaluation skills as well as staying abreast of current medical literature with the assessment of the potential impact on clinical practice. The first journal club is speculated to have occurred at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London somewhere between 1835 and 1854 [1]. Linzer sim...

The literature on economics of corruption is lacking in evidence on consumer responses to identifiable scandals. The Calciopoli episode affecting Italian football in the 2005/06 season serves as an opportunity for an empirical investigation into consumer (fan) behaviour following punishments imposed by the Italian league on clubs whose officials were found guilty of corrupt practices. Using a d...

We assess the proclaimed pro-competitive effects of “transfer system”, no-poaching agreement governing European football (soccer) labor market. A major argument to legitimize this system is that transfer fees, which hiring clubs pay release players from their current clubs, redistribute revenues large market small clubs. This would strengthen clubs’ financial clout and ability compete in sporti...