Articles in this issue:

  • Michael A. Leeds
    John M. Mirikitani
    Danna Tang

    China spent far more on the 2008 Olympiad than any previous host country. A retrospective assessment of the benefits of the 2008 Games to the Chinese economy will not be possible for several years. We use an adaptation of event study methodology that has been employed by studies of previous Olympiads to analyze the expected benefits of the 2008 Games. We show that the announcement that Beijing would host the 2008 Games led to a brief rise in the Shanghai exchange, but the euphoria quickly dissipated. We find that there was no corresponding decline in the stock exchanges of Beijing’s...Read more

  • Mark Koyama
    J. James Reade

    Home advantage in football varies over time. Existing theories of home advantage struggle to explain this time-series variation. We argue that the decline in home advantage in English football since the mid-1980s was partly caused by the advent of televised football. We argue that the increase in live television coverage of football matches has worked to incentivize players to not to shirk when playing in away games, as supporters can now more effectively monitor their efforts. We test this hypothesis using both time-series and panel-data econometrics.Read more

  • Ruud H. Koning
    Bart van Velzen

    Sports betting and sports have always been strongly connected. Traditionally, these betting markets have been cleared by bookmakers, who accept bets on certain events. These bookmakers carry the risk of paying the amount wagered if the event occurs. Recently, a new type of betting market has appeared, so-called betting exchanges. In these markets, punters bet with each other directly, and the organization that creates market does not carry any risk that depends on the occurrence of the event. In this paper we provide an analysis of this new type of markets, using a SWOT-analysis. Issues...Read more

  • Victor A. Matheson

    Critics of economic impact studies that purport to show that mega-events such as the Olympics bring large benefits to the communities “lucky” enough to host them frequently cite the use of inappropriate multipliers as a primary reason why these impact studies overstate the true economic gains to the hosts of these events. This brief paper shows in a numerical example one way in which mega-events may lead to inflated multipliers and exaggerated claims of economic benefits.Read more