Does European regional competitiveness influence sports? An analysis of three sports

The main objective of this work was to test European regional determinants of sports competitiveness. We studied competitiveness in volleyball, basketball and handball. We developed a theoretical model based on the model proposed by Bernard and Busse (2004) to analyse the effect of regional institutions and sport environments that can interfere with sports competitiveness. To test our model, we constructed an enlarged database for all European NUTS2 since 1995, which we analysed using panel data techniques (censored Tobit models). Our results reveal that the regions that are able to maintain player performance do so by persistent effort and external influences. These factors contribute more to regional competitiveness than a region’s central location or political prominence.     

Foreign firm entry in an open economy: the case of Portugal

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the entry process of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Portuguese industrial sectors. Portugal presents an interesting case where firms enter to take advantage of export opportunities. The results suggest that foreign firms possess the ability to overcome existing entry barriers that affect domestic firms. Apparently, foreign firms have different expectations about profitability than domestic firms, possibly due to foreign firms’ export-orientation to the rest of the European Union (EU). They appear to desire industries where other foreign firms have clustered. Above all, it appears that these foreign firms enter industries to exploit Portugal's chief location advantage in Western Europe: low wages. Portugal's FDI experience is relevant to other countries that have opened their economies to greater trade and investment and attracted export-oriented firms.     

Online travel purchasing: A literature review

Over the past two decades, there has been an increasing focus on the development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), as well as the impact that they have had on the tourism industry and on travelers’ behaviors. However, research on what drives consumers to purchase travel online has typically been fragmented. In order to better understand consumers’ behavior toward online travel purchasing, this article offers a review of articles that were published in leading tourism and hospitality journals, the ENTER proceedings, and several articles from other peer-reviewed journals, found on the main academic search databases. The antecedents of online travel shopping found are classified into three main categories: Consumer Characteristics, Perceived Channel Characteristics, and Website and Product Characteristics. Finally, this study identifies several gaps and provides some orientation for future research.     

Return decomposition and the Intertemporal CAPM

The Intertemporal CAPM (ICAPM) from Merton (1973) has had a strong impact in empirical asset pricing leading to numerous multifactor models. This paper shows that the explanatory power of the ICAPM application by Campbell and Vuolteenaho (2004) relies critically on the computation of Dimson (1979) covariances (betas). If one employs the standard factor covariances (excluding lagged factors), the two-factor ICAPM has virtually no explanatory power for the average returns of the 25 size/book-to-market portfolios. More specifically, it is the covariance with the lagged innovation in one of the state variables (the value spread) that drives the explanatory power of the model. These results are inconsistent with the central economic intuition from the ICAPM. By specifying a more general version of the ICAPM, the fit of the model improves relative to the Campbell and Vuolteenaho (2004) model.     

Poverty Elasticity: A Note on a New Empirical Approach

This note proposes a non‐parametric estimation method controlled for endogeneity to calculate poverty elasticities for a panel of countries. Results show that usual linear estimates without control for endogeneity overestimate the growth elasticity of poverty.     

Soccer transfers,team efficiency and the sports cycle in the most valued European soccer leagues – have European soccer teams been efficient in trading players?

The sale of soccer players is a serious issue for the sustainability of professional teams. This article discusses the efficiency of the values that 183 European soccer teams have received for the sales of their players since 2007. We estimated stochastic frontiers for these soccer teams using stochastic frontier analysis. We found that teams with higher numbers of titles, with huge past acquisitions of players, and achieving good rankings in the previous season tend to receive more transfer inflows. The efficiency of these inflows can be significantly influenced if the team exhibits a long sports history or if the team participates in the Champions League or in the Europa League.     

Minority Faculty Hiring Power in Academe: an Economic Model

This paper investigates whether minorities in academe exercise bargaining power in a way that influences hiring of other minority faculty. We develop a stylized model that shows how minorities influence the hiring of other minorities, taking into account the hiring of majority faculty. We postulate that such behavior is similar to the behavior of insider workers in the context of the insider-outsider literature.     

More equal but not so fair: an analysis of Brazilian income distribution from 1995 to 2009

This study measures unfair inequality in Brazil between 1995 and 2009. To achieve that, we used the statistical tool developed by Almås et al. (J Public Econ 95:488–499, 2011) and the concept of “responsibility-sensitive” fairness proposed by Bossert (Math Soc Sci 29:1–17, 1995), Konow (J Econ Behav Organ 31(1):13–35, 1996) and Cappelen and Tungodden (Fairness and the proportionality principle, Discussion paper SAM 31/2007. Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, 2007). The results indicate that the fairness level in Brazil remained unchanged throughout the analyzed period.