A range of cross-sectional models are estimated with a view to establishing the factors that determine the valuation of professional athletes in a highly-specialised sport, with an application to cricket’s Indian Premier League (IPL). We distinguish between personal characteristic and playing ability factors, and with respect to the former, between ability in different forms of the sport. We fi...

Does the Home Advantage Depend on Crowd Support? Evidence from Same-Stadium Derbies We investigate to what extent crowd support contributes to the home advantage in soccer, disentangling this effect from other mechanisms such as players’ familiarity with the stadium and travel fatigue. To evaluate the relevance of crowd support in determining home advantage we analyze same-stadium derbies (matc...

The favorite-longshot bias describes the longstanding empirical regularity that betting odds provide biased estimates of the probability of a horse winning—longshots are overbet, while favorites are underbet. Neoclassical explanations of this phenomenon focus on rational gamblers who overbet longshots due to risk-love. The competing behavioral explanations emphasize the role of misperceptions o...

This study provides a systematic analysis of the VIP-room contractual system of Macau’s traditional casino industry. It examines the system’s historical background, its organizational structure, its operational mechanisms, and its role in Macau’s casino industry. This analysis examines the evolving and likely future changes in the VIP-room sector—as well as the mass market sector—caused by the ...

The Impact of Legalized Casino Gambling on Crime We examine the impact of legalized casino gambling, including Indian casinos, on crime. Using county-level data between 1994 and 2009, the impact that casino legalization had on crime is examined. Our results show an increase in crime associated with casinos in some circumstances, but not others. Crime impact results are quite sensitive to data, ...

This paper constructs and estimates the demand for international tourism for the Italian Province of Sassari. The sample period under estimation is from 1972 to 1995. Three dynamic models are estimated at monthly, annual and quarterly data frequencies. Similarities and differences are explored amongst the three models, using recently developed econometric techniques. A “premodelling” data analy...

We estimate grid level tourist numbers to Arctic Circle countries under a number of climate change scenarios. At present, the highest tourism volumes are found in Canada and most of the Scandinavian countries. In general, it appears that tourists are attracted to regions with better infrastructure and nicer cities. Under each climate change scenario, Russia sees a significant increase in touris...

Game theory is usually diffi cult to test precisely in the field because predictions typically depend sensitively on features that are not controlled or observed. We conduct one such test using field data from the Swedish lowest unique positive integer (LUPI) game. In the LUPI game, players pick positive integers and whoever chose the lowest unique number wins a fixed prize. Theoretical equilib...