Running the Numbers on Lotteries and the Poor: An Empirical Analysis of Transfer Payment Distribution and Subsequent Lottery Sales

State lottery revenues are shown to increase during the week transfer payments are distributed. The timing of the increase in lottery purchases suggests a portion of the transfer payments is used to purchase lottery tickets. In addition to providing information on the timing of lottery purchases, this study finds sales of Pick 3 and Pick 4 tickets increase during the period, while sales of Pick 5 and Pick 6 games do not, suggesting a general preference for the relatively higher probability, smaller jackpot games for the group.

The lottery as an alternative source of state revenue

Conclusion In this paper the authors have developed an economic model of state lotteries that determines the probability of whether a given state will adopt a lottery or not, determines the probability of whether a given state is likely to adopt a lottery sooner rather than later, and determines the state's expected net spendable revenues generated by adopting and operating a lottery. The authors found that a given state will tend to adopt a lottery and will tend to adopt the lottery sooner, the higher the relative tax effort of the state, the higher the mean personal income of the state's residents (or the lower the fraction of the state's residents that are in poverty), the greater the restrictions on raising other taxes in the state, the greater the state's spendable revenue generated from parimutuel betting in the state, the larger the fraction of the state's border that is contiguous with other states with lotteries, and since 1980, the greater the annual number of tourists or visitors in the state.A state's expected net spendable revenue from adopting and operating a lottery is greater the higher the mean personal income of residents in the state, the greater the annual number of tourists or visitors in the state, the smaller the fraction of the state's border that is contiguous with other states with lotteries, and the smaller the parimutuel industry in the state. The ability of a given state's residents to cross the border to purchase lottery tickets in contiguous states, and the ability to engage in parimutuel betting in a state are substitutes for the purchase of lottery tickets in the given state and significantly reduce the expected net spendable revenue from adopting and operating a lottery in that state.From a policy making standpoint, legislators often appear to support the adoption of a lottery for their state without fully considering a realistic expected level of net spendable revenue that the proposed lottery is likely to generate for that particular state.⁸ Often these legislators apparently do not consider important determinants of expected lottery profits such as the level of personal income of state residents, the annual number of tourists in the state, and the presence or absence of adjacent states with lotteries. Also, legislators do not consider fully the impact that adopting a lottery will have on existing parimutuel betting industries in the state. Likewise, legislators apparently do not consider the negative impact of parimutuel betting on the expected net spendable revenue generated by the proposed lottery. Legislative decisions made in the absence of full information often tend to be inefficient decisions. The present study may encourage policy makers to become better informed on the issue of lottery adoption for their state.     

Price discrimination across different ticket distribution channels: Evidence from the US-china flight market

In the US-China international flight market, airlines sell tickets in two different distribution channels at vastly different prices. This provides a rare opportunity to examine how airlines practice price discrimination across different ticket distribution channels. Using a unique dataset collected from this market, we find that price discrimination across different ticket distribution channels is not influenced by market competition but increases with demand.     

What Are SEC Football Tickets Worth? Evidence from Secondary Market Transactions

Tickets to sporting events are highly differentiated—seat location, date and time of the game, and home‐team and opponent qualities make each ticket unique. Preferences also differ nontrivially across fans, all of which make the supplier's pricing problem complex. We examine strategies employed by Southeastern Conference (SEC) universities in pricing their football tickets and evaluate their effectiveness in extracting surplus from fans. We use hedonic analysis of data collected from online secondary market transactions to construct a synthetic season ticket, which we compare to prices actually charged by university athletic departments. We also compare quality premiums charged by universities for better seats with market evaluations of those quality differences.     

Dueling Jackpots: Are Competing Lotto Games Complements or Substitutes?

This paper considers the relationship that exists between two lottery products offered simultaneously in the same state, a smaller lottery game run by the individual state and a larger multi-state game run in coordination with other states. The primary issue is whether the two different products should be considered substitutes or complements for one another. The question is considered from two different perspectives that lead to a conclusion that while the two products do tend to be complements to one another, overall the individually run state lottery games experience a reduction in sales from the presence of the multi-state game.     

De vraag naar openbaar vervoer in de drie grote steden

Summary This is an analysis of the demand for public transport—provided by tramway and bus services—in Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam. It is principally concerned with the estimation of price elasticities and with an assessment of the future growth of demand. The analysis is based on monthly figures of the numbers of tickets of six different kinds sold at known tariffs in the three cities from 1948 to 1964. The method of analysis is least-squares regression of demand on real price and time; dummy variables are used to eliminate the seasonal variation of demand and to account for changes in the tariff structure as in the case of the introduction of a new type of ticket with special facilities. The data for the three cities are analysed separately throughout. To begin with, demand for each particular type of ticket was analysed separately. The resulting estimates show no coherent pattern in each of the cities. Matters improve, however, when demand is grouped together—according to the type of ticket—in two categories only,viz., “travel to and from work” and “all other transport”. Demand is inelastic with respect to price for both categories, but the price elasticities differ: they are about 0.80 for the first group, and only 0.40 for the second. There is also a marked difference in the trend coefficients. Demand for travel to and from work is increasing annually, while other transport is declining at a rate of about 7%. These results apply uniformly for each of the three cities considered.      

教育彩票:一种准公共物品的筹资方式

受教育权利的非竞争性和教育受益主体的非排他性表明了教育的准公共物品属性。然而在我国,具有准公共物品性质的教育面临着现实的筹资困境：国家的财政性教育经费投入严重不足和个人投入教育水平有限。而教育作为一项国家事业决定着国民素质高低和国际竞争力,国家在教育投入上应扮演一个更为积极的角色,多渠道筹集资金,发展教育事业。发行彩票是国家为筹集公益金的一种方式,可以有效、迅速地募集大量社会闲散资金,用于公益事业,作为社会公共事业有益资金补充。在教育投入渠道不多和投入量有限的前提下,发行教育彩票,弥补教育投入,在理论和实践上都具有可行性。     

U.S. professional football game-day attendance

This paper uses Tobit analysis to estimate a model which explains game-day attendance at professional football games in the U.S. Several potential determinants of attendance are accounted for in the model. The data used in the analysis pertain to 392 regular season games played during the 1986 and 1987 National Football League seasons. The estimation results suggest that attendance is greater when the opposing teams—particularly, the home team—are of higher quality. There is also evidence that games expected to be close in score are more heavily attended than those that are not. Rainy conditions reduce fan turnout, although warmer temperatures lessen the negative effect of precipitation. Higher ticket prices lead to lower attendance, and fans are apparently indifferent to whether games are played either indoors or outdoors.     

基于全截面数据的我国彩票业与宏观经济关系实证研究

为探究彩票业与宏观经济的内在关系,运用协整分析技术和格兰杰因果检验模型,对国内31个省市1992～2010年的国民收入和彩票销量构成的截面数据进行实证分析。结果表明国民收入的增长是彩票销量增长的格兰杰原因,而彩票销量的增长不是国民收入增长的格兰杰原因。但从彩票的社会生态免疫功能视域,彩票产品能够满足人们的"赌性"需求,具有抑制赌资外流的生态免疫功能。建议管理部门树立彩票市场的社会生态管理理念,设置合理的彩票销量额度区间;加大非法赌博监管力度,通过减少赌资外流来增加彩票资金的销售额;同时开发出更多的彩票博彩产品来更好地满足人们的"赌性"需求,使彩票发行能更好地为我国社会公益事业发展服务。     

投入50亿元以奖代罚治理六省市大气污染的绩效探讨

在大气污染治理中,经济利益与环保压力、防治与排污之间的博弈,影响着大气污染治理的绩效.过去的环保政策和治理行为表明：逐利博弈下,环保治理“罚”得很困窘,防治污染的效果不大.只有设计出多重激励下的“奖”励政策,才会产生很好的大气污染治理绩效.     

西藏特色产业发展战略研究

西藏自治区是少数民族集中分布的地区,西藏具有独具特色的自然、人文、地理资源禀赋,具有发展特色产业的优良环境与优势。体育产业属于西藏特色产业之一,以体育产业为例分析西藏特色产业现状、资源分布及配置,从经济学区位理论角度出发,提出发展西藏特色产业的战略规划。     

对春运期间火车票价变动的经济学简单分析

春运现象由来已久,面对日益严重的买票难,黄牛猖獗等春运问题,铁道部在06年以前曾试图运用价格机制来调节,然而2007年宣布火车票不涨价,本文将运用微观经济学理论,结合市场进行分析,阐明火车票价不能上涨的原因,并提出相关解决方案。     

The Rise (and Fall) of the Arena Football League

After 22 seasons of competition, the Arena Football League (AFL) suspended operations in 2009. Play resumed in 2010, but attendance has declined dramatically. We examine the determinants of the demand for tickets to AFL games using data from the league’s first incarnation from 1987 to 2008; we find that the honeymoon effect for first-generation AFL teams was very short. Teams lost about 1,700 fans per game on average in their second year of operation, a sizeable loss given league average of 11,000 fans. Our results also suggest that Major League Baseball (MLB) serves as a direct competitor to the AFL, and this offers insights into why the AFL has struggled in its second incarnation (2010–2012).     

Are “Education Lotteries” Less Regressive? Evidence from Texas

With little exception, research has shown that state-sponsored lotteries are regressive in the aggregate, in that lottery sales do not increase proportionately with area income. We test whether the purpose of lottery revenues mitigates this spatial regressivity. In August of 1997, the statutory earmark for Texas Lottery proceeds moved from the General Fund to the Foundation School Fund, which supports K-12 education. Beginning in 2000, the lottery was increasingly marketed as a funding stream for public schools. Drawing on a content analysis of lottery commission press releases from 1993 to 2006, we find that Instant game sales were modestly responsive to education messaging, in that sales became noticeably less regressive in the wake of more intense reminders of the education component of the state lottery. It is likely that unobserved heterogeneity in local sales factors played a much bigger role than education marketing.     

套利风险视角下的市帐率与股利政策

公司在进行股利支出时是迎合投资人或者成长机会一直未有定论,这两个理论皆采用市帐率作为代理变数,其对公司股利支出的预测则是相反的方向。文章利用套利风险与市帐率的交互作用项来检验这两种理论,结果发现如下:第一,公司市帐率越高,未来的现金股利越高;第二,在高价股中,高管人员迎合投资人而发放现金股利;第三,在高套利成本、低交易量、卖空成本以及信息不对称程度较高的公司,高管人员会根据公司的成长机会而进行股利的支出。     

Experimenting with Contests for Experimentation

We report an experimental test of alternative rules in innovation contests when success may not be feasible and contestants may learn from each other. Following Halac, Kartik, and Liu (in press), the contest designer can vary the prize allocation rule from Winner‐Take‐All (WTA) in which the first successful innovator receives the entire prize to Shared in which all successful innovators during the contest duration share in the prize. The designer can also vary the information disclosure policy from Public in which at each period, all information about contestants' past successes and failures is publicly available, to Private, in which contestants only know their own histories. In our setting, the optimal contest design in terms of maximizing the probability that at least one innovator is successful depends on the probability of successful innovation, given that innovation is feasible. Under some parameters the designer will prefer a WTA‐Public contest; while, under others he will prefer Shared‐Private. Our experiments provide evidence that Private disclosure contests behaviorally dominate Public disclosure, regardless of the prize allocation rule, and moreover that Shared‐Private contests dominate WTA‐Private contests.     

彷徨的中国博彩业

2010年1月4日，国务院《关于推进海南国际旅游岛建设发展的若十意见》指出，将在海南试办一些国际通行的旅游体育娱乐项目，探索发展竞猜型体育彩票和大型国际赛事即开彩票。     

企业股利分配具有生命周期特征吗？——基于中国上市公司的实证研究

新近出现的股利分配的生命周期理论假说认为,企业根据所处的财务生命周期阶段动态对股利支付进行相机抉择,并且公司的股利分配呈现生命周期特征。以该理论为基础,本文使用1993—2006年间的中国上市公司股利分配数据,运用Logit回归模型进行了实证检验。结果发现,我国上市公司的现金股利支付概率和股票股利支付概率均与企业留存收益与投入资本之比呈显著正相关。这一结果表明,股利支付的生命周期理论对我国上市公司股利政策具有较强的解释力,我国上市公司的股利分配呈现生命周期特征。     

Incumbent’s price response to new entry: The case of Japanese supermarkets

Large-scale supermarkets have rapidly expanded in Japan over the past two decades, partly because of zoning deregulations for large-scale merchants. This study examines the effect of supermarket openings on the price of national-brand products sold at local incumbents, using scanner price data with a panel structure. Detailed geographic information on store location enables us to define treatment and control groups to control for unobserved heterogeneity and temporary demand shock. The analysis reveals that stores in the treatment group lowered their prices of curry paste, bottled tea, instant noodles, and toothpaste by 0.4–3.1% more than stores in a control group in response to a large-scale supermarket opening.     

Bertrand-Edgeworth equilibrium in a cash-in-advance economy

This paper is about price and wage competition in a dynamicgeneral equilibrium model. We consider an equity financed economywhere firms need money to finance their input costs. Part ofthe output is sold for money to be used in the next period asworking capital and the remaining part is distributed to ownersas real dividends. We first characterize the steady state competitiveequilibrium path. Second, we study whether this competitiveequilibrium can be supported as a pure strategy Nash equilibriumin price and wage setting games. We prove a positive resultfor price competition and a negative one for wage competition.