the who and why of lottery empirical highlights from the seminal economic literature lotteries operate today in many countries around the world this type of gambling is usually run by governments and is sometimes described as regressive lottery is an unfair bet so explaining the purchase of lottery tickets by risk averse consumers has been a challenge for economic theory lotteries can be analysed from either of two economic perspectives as a source of public revenue or as a consumer commodity in this paper the state of economic research on lotteries is reviewed focusing on its main empirical findings

buying a dream alternative models of demand for lotto existing lotto demand models utilize effective price computed as the face value of a ticket minus the expected value of prize money per ticket as their primary explanatory variable by contrast this article proposes a key role for consumption benefit or fun in the demand for gambling in general and lotto demand in particular it develops an alternative model of lotto demand that focuses on the maximum possible prize when this is tested against the traditional model using data from the u k national lottery we find that jackpot considerations exert an influence over and above that of variations in effective price

testing for efficiency in lotto markets state sponsored lotto games because they are pari mutuel and because jackpots with no winner are rolled over into the next drawing present an excellent opportunity to test for market efficiency using data from massachusetts kentucky and ohio we investigate bettors responses and test for weak form efficiency lotto bets do not have positive net expected returns thus weak form efficiency exists to evaluate strong form efficiency we utilize the concept of a rational expectations equilibrium we find that in general lotto bettors decisions to play generate a level of sales that conform to their original forecasts of expected value

staggered price setting translog preferences and endogenous persistence abstract this paper generates persistent real effects of a monetary disturbance in the context of staggered price setters the model combines two related and reinforcing features a translog demand structure and a particular input output production structure these features offer a rationale why a firm when computing its own optimal contract price is influenced by the prices set in other overlapping contracts practically the two features interact in a positive manner and provide a way to generate significant endogenous persistence

on the optimal design of lotteries is globally concave since thearguments against the plausibility of a convex utility function advanced in the previous sectionin relation to eu theory apply with equal force to the rdeu model by contrast as is shownbelow these arguments do not apply to risk seeking behavior associated with the possibility that

low inflation pass through and the pricing power of firms abstract recently there has been a significant decline in the degree to which firms pass through changes in costs to prices a decline that is frequently characterized as a reduction in the pricing power of firms the decline appears to be associated with the decline in inflation in many countries the decline has important implications for monetary policy because it affects both forecasts of inflation and the effects of changes in monetary policy on inflation some have argued that the decline in pricing power helped to keep inflation low in the face of apparently strong demand pressures in the united states in the late 1990s this paper puts forth the view that the decline in pass through or pricing power is due to the low inflation environment that has recently been achieved in many countries first a microeconomic model of price setting is used to show that lower pass through is caused by lower perceived persistence of cost changes evidence is then presented showing that inflation is positively correlated with persistence of inflation suggesting that the low inflation itself has caused the low pass through an economy wide model consistent with the micromodel is then presented to illustrate how such changes in pricing power affect output and inflation dynamics in favorable ways but can disappear quickly if monetary policy and expectations change

evolution of erois of electricity until 2050 estimation and implications on prices abstract the eroi for energy returned on invested of an energy technology measures its ability to provide energy efficiently previous studies draw a link between the affluence of a society and the eroi of its energy system and show that erois of renewables are lower than those of fossil fuels logically concerns have been expressed that system wide eroi may decrease during a renewable energy transition first i explain theoretically that the erois of renewables themselves could then decrease as energy efficient fossil fuels would be replaced by less energy efficient renewables in the supply chain then using the multi regional input output model themis i estimate the evolution of erois and prices of electric technologies from 2010 to 2050 for different scenarios global eroi of electricity is predicted to go from 12 in 2010 to 11 in 2050 in a business as usual scenario but down to 6 in a 100 renewable one finally i study the economic implication of a declining eroi an inverse relation between eroi and price is suggested empirically even though theory shows that both quantities may move in the same direction

the economic growth enigma capital labour and useful energy abstract we show that the application of flexible semi parametric statistical techniques enables significant improvements in model fitting of macroeconomic models as applied to the explanation of the past economic growth since 1900 in us uk and japan the new results demonstrate quite conclusively the non linear relationships between capital labour and useful energy with economic growth they also indicate that output elasticities of capital labour and useful energy are extremely variable over time we suggest that these results confirm the economic intuition that growth since the industrial revolution has been driven largely by declining energy costs due to the discovery and exploitation of relatively inexpensive fossil fuel resources implications for the 21st century which are also discussed briefly by exploring the implications of an aceges based scenario of oil production are as follows a the provision of adequate and affordable quantities of useful energy as a pre condition for economic growth and b the design of energy systems as technology incubators for a prosperous 21st century

efficiency and profitability in exotic bets the efficiency and profitability of exotic racetrack bets such as exactas and daily doubles are examined efficiency is understood to mean that above average returns cannot be made in the long run once risk is appropriately controlled for the markets in question are found not to be efficient the inefficiencies however are insufficient to permit simple strategies to show a consistent profit some evidence of smart money exists in that holders of inside information may bet on exactas rather than equivalent standard bets in order to avoid signaling their actions to the betting public copyright 1987 by the review of economic studies limited

the degree of inefficiency in the football betting market statistical tests abstract this paper tests the hypothesis that the football betting market is efficient our statistical tests are stronger than those in previous studies and we examine both nfl and college data over a sample period of fifteen years our statistical tests detect two specific biases in the nfl market and an unspecified bias in the college market we examine the year to year consistency and magnitudes of the biases and find that the nfl bias against home teams has been nearly eliminated while the bias against underdogs has increased profitable exploitation of the biases depends upon transaction costs

lotto fever do lottery players act rationally around large jackpots abstract lotto fever occurs when an increase in ticket sales reduces the expected value of a lottery ticket despite a higher jackpot an examination of 17 538 lotto drawings in the united states finds that examples of lotto fever are exceedingly rare

more caution is needed when using life cycle assessment to determine energy return on investment eroi abstract cumulative energy demand ced estimates from life cycle assessments lcas are increasingly used to determine energy return on investment eroi but the difference in indicators can lead to a misclassification of energy flows in the assessment the core idea of eroi is to measure the relation of energy diverted from society to make energy available to society ced on the other hand includes forms of energy that are not appropriated by society such as fugitive methane emissions from oil wells as well as losses of heating value of coal during transport and storage such energy forms should be excluded from eroi failure to do so leads to results that are inconsistent with the intention of eroi and potentially misleading we demonstrate how this problem is at least partially rectifiable by adopting consistent energy accounting but also note that among the energy flows not appropriated by society occurring in ced not all flows can easily be removed further we point to inconsistencies in heating value assumptions in a widely used database that have misled analysts finally we argue that the differential weighting of primary energy forms in published ced based eroi work is unsubstantiated and should be reconsidered

pass through of exchange rates and competition between floaters and fixers this paper studies how a rise in the share of u s imports from china or any country with a fixed exchange rate could disproportionately lower pass through of exchange rates to u s import prices we develop a theoretical model showing how changes in the competitive environment induce exporters from other countries to lower markups in response to a dollar depreciation thereby moderating pass through the model indicates that a particular local bias condition is necessary for this effect and that free entry amplifies it the model also produces an approximately log linear structural equation for pass through regressions including the china share panel regressions over 1993 2006 indicate that the rising share of trade from china or from all countries with fixed exchange rates can explain a decline in pass through by about onefifth of its size

willingness to pay and the demand for lotto why do many bettors participate in an unfair gamble in particular a lotto game while at the same time purchase insurance the willingness to pay for lotto is analysed to find a rational explanation for a local risk averter s participation in an unfair bet a reasonable case is found where bettors preference can be approximately characterized as a locally risk averse and sufficiently prudent cubic function such bettors dislike risk but prefer standard third moment of the payoff the result suggests that the traditional effective price for lotto demand may omit important explanatory variables we thus propose an alternative method to examine the demand for lotto by incorporating the second and the third moments of lotto s payoff evidence from taiwan lotto data supports that lotto bettors could be both locally risk averse and rational

eroi of different fuels and the implications for society abstract all forms of economic production and exchange involve the use of energy directly and in the transformation of materials until recently cheap and seemingly limitless fossil energy has allowed most of society to ignore the importance of contributions to the economic process from the biophysical world as well as the potential limits to growth this paper centers on assessing the energy costs of modern day society and its relation to gdp our most important focus is the characteristics of our major energy sources including each fuel s energy return on investment eroi the eroi of our most important fuels is declining and most renewable and non conventional energy alternatives have substantially lower eroi values than traditional conventional fossil fuels at the societal level declining eroi means that an increasing proportion of energy output and economic activity must be diverted to attaining the energy needed to run an economy leaving less discretionary funds available for non essential purchases which often drive growth the declining eroi of traditional fossil fuel energy sources and the effect of that on the world economy are likely to result in a myriad of consequences most of which will not be perceived as good

testing for rational expectations in the uk national lottery the concept of rational expectations has typically been assumed without testing in the analysis of consumer demand and market efficiency in betting markets including betting on lottery games lottery games offer an excellent opportunity to test how participants process the information that is available to them using the uk national lottery as our particular case we find that participants in general efficiently process available information specifically they act as if they can on average forecast the level of sales for a given drawing

investigating efficiency in betting markets evidence from the greek 6 49 lotto abstract in this paper we investigate the existence of profit opportunities in the greek market for the 6 49 lotto under the assumption of random number selection we find evidence suggesting that the market is efficient because number selection is found to deviate from randomness we further investigate the existence of profit opportunities due to number unpopularity the evidence suggests that although unpopular numbers exist they are not sufficiently unpopular so as to generate positive expected payoffs

does exchange rate stability increase trade and welfare we develop a simple general equilibrium framework to study the effect of the exchange rate system on trade and welfare an important feature of the model is deviations from purchasing power parity caused by rigid price setting in buyers currency we find the following first exchange rate stability is not necessarily associated with more trade in a simple benchmark model with separable preferences and only monetary shocks trade is unaffected by the exchange rate system consistent with most evidence second both trade and welfare can be higher under either exchange rate system depending on preferences and on the monetary policy rules followed under each system finally in general there is no one to one relationship between the levels of trade and welfare across exchange rate systems

considering only first order effects how simplifications lead to unrealistic technology optimism in climate change mitigation this article challenges the notion that energy efficiency and clean energy technologies can deliver sufficient degrees of climate change mitigation by six arguments not widely recognized in the

jackpot promotion model for taiwan lotto lotto was inaugurated in january 2002 and immediately became a popular activity in taiwan as the big craze following its initial introduction has subsided the growth of lotto game sales has slowed to maintain lottery sales momentum operators have conducted numerous jackpot promotions this study examines the effectiveness of various jackpot promotional strategies the analytical results can provide a valuable reference for operators and governmental authorities regarding ways of increasing lottery earnings the empirical findings of this investigation include the following 1 the effective price elasticity of lotto is 0 382 taipei fubon bank can increase the revenue gained from lotto by increasing the effective price 2 operators can significantly increase lottery sales by declaring the jackpot as an unconditional added fixed or variable bonus