decentralized organizational learning an experimental investigation we experimentally study decentralized organizational learning our objective is to understand how learning members of an organization cope with the con founding effects of the simultaneous learning of others we test the predictions of a stylized rational agent model of organizational learning that provides sharp predictions as to how learning members of an organization might cope with the simultaneous learning of others as a function of fundamental variables e g firm size and the discount factor while the problem of learning while others are learning is quite difficult we find support for the comparative static predictions of the models unique symmetric equilibrium jel c72 d23 d83 if one s own actions are embedded in an ecology of the actions of many others who are simultaneously learning and changing it is not easy to understand what is going on the relationship between the actions of individuals in the organization and overall organiza tional performance is confounded by simultaneous learning of other actors

neighborhood information exchange and voter participation an experimental study we study the effect of social embeddedness on voter turnout by investigating the role of information about other voters decisions we do so in a participation game in which we distinguish between early and late voters each late voter is told about one early voter s turnout decision cases are distinguished where the voters are allies support the same group or adversaries with opposing preferences and where they are uncertain about each other s preferences our experimental results show that the social embeddedness matters this information increases aggregate turnout by approximately 50 the largest effect is observed for allies early voters strategically try to use their first mover position and late voters respond to this

compulsory versus voluntary voting an experimental study abstract we report on an experiment comparing compulsory and voluntary voting institutions in a voting game with common preferences rational choice theory predicts sharp differences in voter behavior between these two institutions if voting is compulsory then voters may find it rational to vote insincerely i e against their private information if voting is voluntary so that abstention is allowed then sincere voting in accordance with a voter s private information is always rational while participation may become strategic we find strong support for these theoretical predictions in our experimental data moreover voters adapt their decisions to the voting institution in place in such a way as to make the group decision accuracy differences between the two voting institutions negligible the latter finding may serve to rationalize the co existence of compulsory and voluntary voting institutions in nature

media markets and localism does local news en espanol boost hispanic voter turnout the same time the availability of these products reduces the consumption of local news not only because some consumers prefer national and global content to local information but also because local media products that lose a significant number of consumers are forced to cut qual ity and they may even cease to exist if their audience falls below a critical threshold for these reasons some scholars claim that the rise of integrated media markets undermines local civic engagement robert d putnam 2000 against this backdrop many regulatory agencies including the federal communications commission fcc of the united states seek to protect local media and promote localism for instance by limiting ownership concentration 1 however localism is desirable only if there are in fact positive spillovers from the provision of local content that can help justify the loss of private welfare that integrated media markets would provide in this paper we propose a simple test for the existence of spillovers from local news pro gramming asking if the presence of local television news affects civic behavior the ubiq uity of local news programming across all us metro areas makes it impossible to study its effects on the general population in contrast the availability of spanish language news has increased considerably in recent years providing us with an experiment to study the effect of local news on one important measure of civic engagement voter turnout in local elections in particular we use a differencing approach asking whether hispanic voter turnout is higher in relation to non hispanic turnout in metro areas with spanish language local television news our results indicate that spanish language local television news raises hispanic turnout by more than 4 percentage points local news targeted at hispanics has no effect on the participa tion of non hispanics and as one would expect a significantly smaller effect in years with a presidential race in markets with spanish language news about a quarter of hispanics turn to these programs our estimates thus imply that news in spanish caused about a fifth of spanish language news viewers to start voting interestingly hispanics with access to news in spanish do not increase the time they spend watching news content analyses of spanish language news programs in the united states find that these shows are much more likely to report on

unanimous rules in the laboratory we study the information aggregation properties of unanimous voting rules in the laboratory in line with theoretical predictions we find that majority rule with veto power dominates unanimity rule we also find that the strategic voting model is a fairly good predictor of subject behavior finally we exploit a framing effect to study how the presence of less sophisticated agents affects veto s welfare properties

media competition and electoral politics we build a framework linking competition in the media market to political participation media outlets report on the ability of candidates running for office and compete for audience through their choice of slant citizens consume news only if the expected utility of being informed about candidates ability is sufficiently large for their group collectively our results can reconcile seemingly contradictory empirical evidence showing that entry in the media market can either increase or decrease turnout while information pushes up independent turnout partisans adjust their turnout to the ability of their preferred candidate and on average they vote less when informed

demand for football and intramatch winning probability an essay on the glorious uncertainty of sports the aims of this study are i to identify the main determinants of the demand for french premiere division football matches using all matches played during the 1997 1998 season ii to estimate a team specific probability of success and iii to propose an updating process for the intramatch winning probability the methodology is tested empirically over an out of sample data set using matches of the 1998 1999 season the results show that football appears to be an inferior product affected by both socio economic and football variables and that the main football variables have only a tenuous explanatory power concerning the final outcome of a given match

impacts of eu carbon emission trade directive on energy intensive industries indicative micro economic analyses the cost impacts from the european emission trading system ets on energy intensive manufacturing industries have been investigated the effects consist of direct costs associated to the co2 reduction requirements stated in the eu directive and of indirect costs of comparable magnitude that originate from a higher electricity price triggered by the ets in the power sector the total cost impacts remain below 2 of the production value for most industries within the ets in the kyoto period in the post kyoto phase assuming a 30 co2 reduction the total cost impact may raise up to 8 of production value in the heaviest industry sectors in steel and cement industries the cost impacts are 3 4 fold compared to the least affected pulp and paper and oil refining electricity intensive industries outside the ets will also be affected for example in aluminum and chlorine production the indirect cost impacts from ets could come up to 10 of production value already in the kyoto period as industry sectors are affected differently by the ets some correcting mechanisms may be worthwhile to consider in securing the operation of the most electricity intensive sectors e g balancing taxation schemes that may include as income source a levy on the wind fall profits of the power sector due to ets a future improvement in ets for industries within the scheme could be scaling of the emission reduction requirement so that the relative total emission reduction costs are at about the same level

information aggregation and turnout in proportional representation a laboratory experiment abstract this paper documents a laboratory experiment that analyzes voter participation in common interest proportional representation pr elections comparing this with majority rule consistent with theoretical predictions poorly informed voters in either system abstain from voting thereby shifting weight to those who are better informed a dilution problem makes mistakes especially costly under pr so abstention is higher in pr in contrast with private interest environments and welfare is lower deviations from nash equilibrium predictions can be accommodated by a logit version of quantal response equilibrium qre which allows for voter mistakes

a general multiple distributed lag framework for estimating the dynamic effects of promotions game attendance resulting from ticket sales is the single largest revenue stream for major league baseball mlb teams we propose a general multiple distributed lag framework following the koyck family of models for estimating mlb attendance drivers and focus specifically on the differential direct and carryover effects of in game promotions by setting various model constraints the proposed framework incorporates different forms of serial correlation and promotion specific dynamic effects using information model selection heuristics we select an optimal model of attendance drivers for the pittsburgh pirates 2010 2012 mlb seasons we demonstrate that our newly proposed model with an unrestricted serial correlation structure performs best we find that although kids promotions have the highest direct effect on attendance giveaway and entertainment promotions have substantial carryover effects and the largest total effects we use our results to optimize the pirates promotional schedule and find that a reallocation of resources across promotional categories can increase profits between 39 and 88 data as supplemental material are available at http dx doi org 10 1287 mnsc 2013 1856 this paper was accepted by eric bradlow special issue on business analytics

football spectator no show behaviour in the german bundesliga despite an extensive literature on stadium attendance demand our understanding of those factors shaping spectator no show behaviour is rudimentary at best here we explore such behaviour by using

the demand for standing and seated viewing accommodation in the english football league using match attendance data collected from a postal survey of football league clubs separate demand equations are estimated for standing and seated viewing accommodation some significant differences between attendance patterns for the two types of accommodation are identified current form the championship significance of the match and a geographical distance variable are found to be important determinants of standing attendance while the club s historical record is of particular importance for seated attendance the paper also discusses the implications of the results in view of the current moves towards the conversion of stadia to all seated accommodation

electoral competition and politician turnover abstract in this paper we analyze the selection by opportunistic parties of the candidates who run for election we consider a setting with incomplete but symmetric information about the candidates abilities in which electoral campaigns provide voters with additional information about candidates parties care only about selecting an appropriate candidate to win the election while voters elect the best candidate conditional on their information we first argue that in order to defeat an established very good candidate of its rival a party may favor a new candidate with highly uncertain ability rather than an established good candidate next we establish that the discrepancy between the objective of parties and the objective of the electorate leads to inefficient conservatism in the selection of candidates i e each party keeps its incumbents too often from the voters viewpoint

information aggregation rationality and the condorcet jury theorem the condorcet jury theorem states that majorities are more likely than any single individual to select the better of two alternatives when there exists uncertainty about which of the two alternatives is in fact preferred most extant proofs of this theorem implicitly make the behavioral assumption that individuals vote sincerely in the collective decision making a seemingly innocuous assumption given that individuals are taken to possess a common preference for selecting the better alternative however in the model analyzed here we find that sincere behavior by all individuals is not rational even when individuals have such a common preference in particular sincere voting does not constitute a nash equilibrium a satisfactory rational choice foundation for the claim that majorities invariably do better than individuals therefore has yet to be derived

aggregation and the role of energy in the economy methods for investigating the role of energy in the economy involve aggregating different energy flows a variety of methods have been proposed but none has received universal acceptance this paper shows that the method of aggregation has crucial effects on the results of the analysis we review the principal assumptions and methods for aggregating energy flows the basic heat equivalents approach economic approaches using prices or marginal product for aggregation emergy analysis and thermodynamic approaches such as exergy we argue that economic approaches such as the index or marginal product method are superior because they account for differences in quality among fuels we apply various economic approaches in three case studies in the us economy in the first we account for energy quality to assess changes in the energy surplus delivered by the extraction of fossil fuels from 1954 to 1992 the second and third case studies examine the importance of energy quality in evaluating the relation between energy use and gdp first a quality adjusted index of energy consumption is used in an econometric analysis of the causal relation between energy use and gdp from 1947 to 1996 second we account for energy quality in an econometric analysis of the factors that determine changes in the energy gdp ratio from 1947 to 1996 without adjusting for energy quality the results imply that the energy surplus from petroleum extraction is increasing that changes in gdp drive changes in energy use and that gdp has been decoupled from between aggregate energy use all of these conclusions are reversed when we account for changes in energy quality 2000 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

evaluating changes in league structure the reorganization of the scottish football league this article investigates the relationship between league structure and the demand for professional team sport using data from the scottish football league sfl 1971 to 1980 the sfl was restructured in 1975 and thus provides an excellent opportunity for the empirical analysis of the influence of league structure the general channels by which league structure affects demand are explored estimates are made of the impact on individual clubs by predicting what attendances would have been in the absence of the league reorganization finally the distribution of attendances across clubs is examined for evidence of the influence of league structure

voting behavior and information aggregation in elections with private information we analyze two candidate elections in which voters are uncertain about the realization of a state variable that affects the utility of all voters each voter has noisy private information about the state variable we show that the fraction of voters whose vote depends on their private information goes to zero as the size of the electorate goes to infinity nevertheless elections fully aggregate information in the sense that the chosen candidate would not change if all private information were common knowledge equilibrium voting behavior is to a large extent determined by the electoral rule i e if a candidate is required to get at least x percent of the vote in order to win the election then in equilibrium this candidate gets very close to x percent of the vote with probability close to one finally if the distribution from which preferences are drawn is uncertain then elections will generally not satisfy full information equivalence and the fraction of voters who take informative action does not converge to zero

voluntary voting costs and benefits we compare voluntary and compulsory voting in a condorcet type model in which voters have identical preferences but dierential information with voluntary voting all equilibria involve sincere voting and positive participation thus in contrast to situations with compulsory voting there is no con ict be tween strategic and sincere behavior when voting is costless voluntary voting is welfare superior to compulsory voting even when voting is costly participa tion rates are such that in the limit the correct candidate is elected that is information fully aggregates

the case for nil votes voter behavior under asymmetric information in compulsory and voluntary voting systems in an informational voting environment we study the impact of an explicit nil vote option on the ballot when some voters are uninformed and face the swing voters curse we postulate a simple model of strategic voting in which voters entertain heterogeneous thresholds on legitimacy of different voting actions we predict that introducing a nil vote option reduces the number of uninformed and invalid votes increasing expected welfare in both voluntary and compulsory voting we test our model in a pen and paper laboratory experiment and find that the predictions of the model hold in the data for both voting systems

divided majority and information aggregation theory and experiment this paper studies theoretically and experimentally the properties of plurality and approval voting when a majority gets divided by information imperfections the majority faces two challenges aggregating information to select the best majority candidate and coordinating to defeat the minority candidate under plurality the majority cannot achieve both goals at once under approval voting it can welfare is strictly higher because some voters approve of both majority alternatives in the laboratory we find i strong evidence of strategic voting and ii superiority of approval voting over plurality finally subject behavior suggests the need to study equilibria in asymmetric strategies

the paradox of voter participation a laboratory study it is widely believed that rational choice theory is grossly inconsistent with empirical observations about voter turnout we report the results of an experiment designed to test the voter turnout predictions of the rational choice palfrey rosenthal model of participation with asymmetric information we find that the three main comparative statics predictions are observed in the data the size effect whereby turnout goes down in larger electorates the competition effect whereby turnout is higher in elections that are expected to be close and the underdog effect whereby voters supporting the less popular alternative have higher turnout rates we also compare the quantitative magnitudes of turnout to the predictions of nash equilibrium we find that there is undervoting for small electorates and overvoting for large electorates relative to nash equilibrium these deviations from nash equilibrium are consistent with the logit version of quantal response equilibrium which provides a good fit to the data and can also account for significant voter turnout in very large elections

does education improve citizenship evidence from the united states and the united kingdom abstract many studies document an association between schooling and civic participation but none credibly investigate causal links we explore the effect of extra schooling induced through compulsory schooling laws on the likelihood of becoming politically involved in the united states and the united kingdom we find that educational attainment is related to several measures of political interest and involvement in both countries we find a strong and robust relationship between education and voting for the united states but not for the united kingdom our us results approach the uk findings when conditioning on registration possibly indicating that registration rules present a barrier to participation

voting with endogenous information acquisition experimental evidence abstract the condorcet jury model with costless but informative signals about the true state of the world predicts that the efficiency of group decision making increases unambiguously with the group size however if signal acquisition is made an endogenous and costly decision then rational voters have disincentives to purchase information as the group size becomes larger we investigate the extent to which human subjects recognize this trade off between better information aggregation and greater incentives to free ride in a laboratory experiment where we vary the group size the cost of information acquisition and the precision of signals we find that the theory predicts well in the case of precise signals however when signals are imprecise free riding incentives appear to be much weaker as there is a pronounced tendency for subjects to over acquire information relative to equilibrium predictions we rationalize the latter finding using a quantal response equilibrium that allows for risk aversion

let the experts decide asymmetric information abstention and coordination in standing committees abstract we examine abstention when voters in standing committees are asymmetrically informed and there are multiple pure strategy equilibria swing voter s curse svc equilibria where voters with low quality information abstain and equilibria when all participants vote their information when the asymmetry in information quality is large we find that voting groups largely coordinate on the svc equilibrium which is also pareto optimal however we find that when the asymmetry in information quality is not large and the pareto optimal equilibrium is for all to participate significant numbers of voters with low quality information abstain furthermore we find that information asymmetry induces voters with low quality information to coordinate on a non equilibrium outcome this suggests that coordination on letting the experts decide is a likely voting norm that sometimes validates svc equilibrium predictions but other times does not

the demand for semi pro league football in malaysia 1989 91 a panel data approach this article arguments the literature on the demand for professional team sports by estimating a demand function for attendance at home matches in the malaysian semi pro football league mspfl between 1989 and 1991 a single equation demand attendance function based on a pooled cross section and time series panel data set of 399 games is estimated by ordinary least squares a fixed effects dummy variable covariance model and an error components model our findings confirm the importance of market size and championship prospects for the home team but not the visiting team as well as divisional status and star players the first match of the season and derby matches also increased attendance

information aggregation and strategic abstention in large laboratory elections this paper compares strategic abstention in ad hoc committees versus standing committees ad hoc committees meet only once and then dissolve while standing committees the central finding from this study is that most of the predictions of swing voter curse theory hold up in large elections conducted under controlled laboratory conditions there is significant abstention and significant balancing of partisans by uniformed voters and vote balancing increases with the partisan imbalance elections with no partisan imbalance successfully aggregate information and lead to efficient outcomes consistent with swing voter curse theory this efficiency falls off as partisan imbalance increases but to a significantly greater extent than is predicted in equilibrium it is instructive to compare these findings in large elections with results from the elections reported in battaglini et al 2007 all of the qualitative results are the same concerning the comparative statics balancing and abstention one slight difference is that there was less irrational voting for in the small elections than in the large elections except for the 5 9 m 0 treatment where we observed 20 voting for in the small elections compared with 10 voting for in the large elections these differences were reflected in slightly different efficiency results between small and large elections with the comparisons mirroring the differences in voting for more irrational voting results in lower e ciency we conclude that this scaled up study successfully replicates the initial swing voter s curse experiment reported in battaglini et al 2007 obtaining very similar findings in laboratory committees that are three times the size of those in the original study the one caveat is that we found evidence of a slight increase in irrational nonequilibrium behavior voting for in the larger elections whether this trend would continue as election size is further scaled up is an open question a swing voter s curse environment

the demand for league football a demand equation is estimated for total football league attendances for the period 1948 49 to 1979 80 plausible values are obtained for the elasticities of demand with respect to income and to a price variable which includes the cost of travel to the stadium the values imply that football spectating is an inferior good with a low price elasticity equations are also estimated for the league s separate divisions the implications of the results for the football league clubs are discussed

advertising effects in presidential elections presidential elections provide both an important context in which to study advertising and a setting that mitigates the challenges of dynamics and endogeneity we use the 2000 and 2004 general elections to analyze the effect of market level advertising on county level vote shares the results indicate significant positive effects of advertising exposures both instrumental variables and fixed effects alter the ad coefficient advertising elasticities are smaller than are typical for branded goods yet significant enough to shift election outcomes for example if advertising were set to zero and all other factors held constant three states electoral votes would have changed parties in 2000 given the narrow margin of victory in 2000 this shift would have resulted in a different president

the brazilian soccer championship an efficiency analysis this article analyses the top brazilian football league from 2003 to 2011 by estimating a cost function and using a stochastic frontier model among the covariates the number of fans per club and club remoteness is taken into account the brazilian clubs are then ranked according to their technical efficiency during the 2000 2011 period based on the results the policy implication is presented and the economic implications arising from the study are also considered

the demand for football in the regions of england and wales dobson s m and goddard j a 1996 the demand for football in the regions of england and wales reg studies 30 443 453 this paper investigates the determinants of the demand for football in the regions of england and wales using annual time series data over a 37 year period we use a dynamic error correction model to identify economic and football specific factors which determine attendances in the short run and long run the short run influences on demand are performance admission price and goal scoring performance and the unemployment rate are identified as significant long run determinants of attendance although the relationship between attendance share and performance seems to exhibit a strong regional dimension we find only weak evidence of regional variation in the coefficients of the attendance model itself dobson s m et goddard j a 1996 la demande de football aux regions de l angleterre et des pays de galles reg studies 30 443 453 cet article examine les determinants de la de

the demand for english league football a club level analysis a demand equation is estimated for 19 large urban based english football league clubs over the period 1962 3 to 1991 2 in order to analyse the economic determinants of club attendances while controlling for football specific factors attendances are measured with and without correction for admission of season ticket holders using an error correction specification to model attendances it is shown that both adjusted and unadjusted attendances respond to real ticket prices in the long run in 17 and 18 clubs respectively the price elasticity is typically larger for adjusted attendances suggesting that casual spectators are more price sensitive than season ticket holders among football specific factors league position goals scored and promotion and relegation between the divisions are all important determinants of attendance patterns

public protests and policy making technological advances and the development of social media have made petitions public protests and other form of spontaneous activism increasingly common tools for individuals to influence decision makers to study these phenomena in this article i present a theory of petitions and public protests that explores their limits as mechanisms to aggregate information the key assumption is that valuable information is dispersed among citizens through petitions and protests citizens can signal their private information to the policy maker who can then choose to use it or not i first show that if citizens individual signals are not sufficiently precise information aggregation is impossible no matter how large is the population of informed citizens even if the conflict with the policy maker is small i then characterize the conditions on conflict and the signal structure that guarantee information aggregation when these conditions are satisfied i show that full information aggregation is possible as the population grows to infinity when they are not satisfied i show that information aggregation may still be possible if social media are available

patents and cumulative innovation causal evidence from the courts cumulative innovation is central to economic growth do patent rights facilitate or impede such follow on innovation this paper studies the effect of removing patent protection through court invalidation on the subsequent research related to the focal patent as measured by later citations we exploit random allocation of judges at the u s court of appeal for the federal circuit to control for the endogeneity of patent invalidation we find that patent invalidation leads to a 50 percent increase in subsequent citations to the focal patent on average but the impact is highly heterogeneous patent rights appear to block follow on innovation only in the technology fields of computers electronics and medical instruments moreover the effect is entirely driven by invalidation of patents owned by large patentees that triggers entry of small innovators suggesting that patents may impede the democratization of innovation

analyzing the economic cost of the kyoto protocol abstract this paper examines the cost of meeting the kyoto protocol commitments under alternative assumptions regarding technology and technical change real gdp is modeled as a function of the capital labor and energy inputs the analysis is based on data for 23 annex 1 countries from 1965 to 1999 two important results emerge first the standard assumption of hicks neutral technical change and time and scale independent output elasticities is not supported by the data second when technical change is allowed to be biased in favor of the energy and capital inputs and when the output elasticities vary with the level of factor use and over time the loss in real gdp due to the kyoto commitments rises substantially on average the loss in real gdp is one and a half times higher than obtained under the standard assumptions

elections with privately informed parties and voters this paper studies a situation in which parties are betterinformed than voters about the optimal policies for voters weshow that voters are able to infer the parties information byobserving their electoral positions even if parties have policypreferences which differ substantially from the median voter s unlike previous work that reach opposite conclusions we assumethat voters have some private information of their own if theinformation available to voters is biased parties attempts toinfluence voters beliefs will result in less than fullconvergence even if parties know with certainty the optimalpolicy for the median voter

voter participation and strategic uncertainty the paradox of not voting is examined in a model where voters have uncertainty about the preferences and costs of other voters in game theoretic models of voter participation under complete information equilibrium outcomes can have substantial turnout even when voting costs are relatively high in contrast when uncertainty about preferences and costs is present only voters with negligible or negative net voting costs participate when the electorate is large

abstention in elections with asymmetric information and diverse preferences we analyze a model of a two candidate election with costless voting in which voters have asymmetric information and diverse preferences we demonstrate that a strictly positive fraction of the electorate will abstain and that nevertheless elections effectively aggregate voters private information using examples we show that more informed voters are more likely to vote than their less informed counterparts increasing the fraction of the electorate that is informed however may lead to higher levels of abstention we conclude by showing that a biased distribution of information can lead to a biased voting population but does not lead to biased outcomes

the swing voter s curse in the laboratory this paper reports the first laboratory study of the swing voter s curse and provides insights on the larger theoretical and empirical literature on pivotal voter models our experiment controls for different information levels of voters as well as the size of the electorate the distribution of preferences and other theoretically relevant parameters the design varies the share of partisan voters and the prior belief about a payoff relevant state of the world our results support the equilibrium predictions of the feddersen pesendorfer model and clearly reject the notion that voters in the laboratory use naive decision theoretic strategies the voters act as if they are aware of the swing voter s curse and adjust their behavior to compensate while the compensation is not complete and there is some heterogeneity in individual behavior we find that aggregate outcomes such as efficiency turnout and margin of victory closely track the theoretical predictions

committee design with endogenous information this paper is concerned with the arrangements for collective decision making in a world where agents must be motivated to acquire information the analysis identifies some basic forces shaping the design of panels of decision makers referees managers jurors etc in situations where decision makers are useful only in so far as they expend some effort to gain information about the alternatives at hand these situations are common one being the refereeing process where an editor requires the opinions of a number of experts who must read the paper acquire information in order to give an opinion as to publication analogously in committees which screen applicants to a programme the committee members must gain information about the applicant s qualifications and likelihood of success in order to evaluate whether to admit him her finally in trial juries it is important that jurors pay attention to the evidence in order to make an informed judgement 1 we focus on environments where information is a public good in the sense that the social benefits of one decision maker acquiring information exceed the private benefits a good mechanism in this environment must not only aggregate information efficiently but also induce the decision makers to acquire information we analyse the design of voting mechanisms our problem is to choose two parameters which determine both the incentive to acquire information and the efficiency with which information is aggregated the first parameter is the size of the decision making unit the number of committee members the second is the plurality required to overturn the status quo the voting rule our main result is this a voting rule that requires a large plurality in the extreme unanimity to upset the status quo can be optimal only if the information available to each committee member is sufficiently accurate when individual information is noisy the drawback

sport event attendance as a function of education evidence from the uk abstractthis article studies the role of education in the decision to attend sporting events the overall objective is to verify whether more educated individuals are more likely to go to sports events than their less educated counterparts if education socializes persons to focus on sports it would then partially offset negative alternatives such as alcohol drug abuse and unlawful behaviours creating a positive externality sport events consumption is extensive highlighting the potential economic importance of the sports education externality to establish the role of education in sport attendance this article applies a probabilistic linear regression model to data from the uk the econometric formulation associates sport event attendance in the left hand side with education in the right hand side while controlling for the socioeconomic variables that are known to affect a consumer s decision to go to a sport event gender age income employment status children marital status and geographical

bayesian learning in social networks we study the perfect bayesian equilibrium of a sequential learning model over a general social network each individual receives a signal about the underlying state of the world observes the past actions of a stochastically generated neighbourhood of individuals and chooses one of two possible actions the stochastic process generating the neighbourhoods defines the network topology we characterize pure strategy equilibria for arbitrary stochastic and deterministic social networks and characterize the conditions under which there will be asymptotic learning convergence in probability to the right action as the social network becomes large we show that when private beliefs are unbounded meaning that the implied likelihood ratios are unbounded there will be asymptotic learning as long as there is some minimal amount of expansion in observations we also characterize conditions under which there will be asymptotic learning when private beliefs are bounded

continuous decisions by a committee median versus average mechanisms abstract a group of strategic agents with diverse private information and interdependent preferences has to take a continuous collective decision i study the design of the decision making procedure from the viewpoint of a utilitarian social planner for uniformly distributed information the implementation of the average report as decision dominates the implementation of the median report when the set of admissible reports is optimally designed this is true for any number of agents and for any degree of interdependence the result extends to a general class of distributions when the number of agents is large

an experimental study of jury decision rules we present experimental results on groups facing a decision problem analogous to that faced by a jury we consider three treatment variables group size three or six number of votes needed for conviction majority or unanimity and pre vote deliberation we find evidence of strategic voting under the unanimity rule a large fraction of our subjects vote for a decision analogous to conviction even when their private information indicates a state analogous to innocence this is roughly consistent with the game theoretic predictions of feddersen and pesendorfer although individual behavior is explained well by the game theoretic model there are discrepancies at the level of the group decision contrary to feddersen and pesendorfer in our experiments there are fewer outcomes analogous to incorrect convictions under unanimity rule than under majority rule in the case of no deliberation we simultaneously account for the individual and group data using quantal response equilibrium

expert information and majority decisions this paper shows theoretically and experimentally that hearing expert opinions can be a double edged sword for collective decision making we present a majoritarian voting game of common interest where committee members receive not only private information but also expert information that is more accurate than private information and observed by all members in theory there are bayesian nash equilibria where the committee members voting strategy incorporates both types of information and access to expert information enhances the efficiency of the majority decision however there is also a class of potentially inefficient equilibria where a supermajority always follow expert information and the majority decision does not aggregate private information in the laboratory the majority decisions and the subjects voting behaviour were largely consistent with those in the class of inefficient equilibria we found a large efficiency loss due to t he presence of expert information especially when the committee size was large we suggest that it may be desirable for expert information to be revealed only to a subset of committee members

team roster turnover and attendance in major league baseball empirical support is shown for the propositionthat sports fans prefer the composition of their home team to remain the same from season to season controlling for price income population team quality league year the stadium effects the regression results indicate that for each percentage point increase in the turnover of the composition of the team attendance will fall by about 0 7 the implications of this heretofore ignored tendency are briefly discussed

impact of league restructuring on team sport attendances the case of rugby league an econometric analysis of attendances at rugby footbal league matches in england over the period 1966 1990 is presented the major finding is that the move from one to two leagues in 1973 had a substantial impact on attendances teams in the upper league experienced greater attendances ceteris paribuswhilst those in the lower league had reduced attendances

college football attendance a panel study of the football bowl subdivision panel data with an instrumented real ticket price are used to estimate a regular season game day attendance and per cent of capacity regression equations better team performance whether short term season wins intermediate term bowls games in last 10 years or long term lifetime winning percentage higher undergraduate enrolment traditional rivalries and video coverage increase per cent of capacity used poor weather more rain or cloud cover higher travel costs and larger local population decrease it fan interest wanes as a season progresses but this is offset as a team wins more games games played near a national football league stadium those with conference opponents non fbs opponents and non bcs opponents have lower stadium utilization the substantive results of the analysis do not change when attendance is used as the dependent variable rather than per cent of capacity

the curse of uninformed voting an experimental study we study majority voting over two alternatives in small groups individuals have identical preferences but are uncertain about which alternative can better achieve their common interest before voting each individual can obtain information by buying a valuable but imperfect signal about the better alternative voting is either voluntary or compulsory in the compulsory mode each individual must vote between the two alternatives while in the voluntary mode they can also abstain an uninformed random vote generates a negative externality since it may override an informative group decision in pivotal events in our experiments participants in randomly re matched groups obtain information more often with compulsory than voluntary voting and the average number of signals is greater in larger than smaller groups surprisingly uninformed voting is common even in the voluntary mode finally group performance is poor in all treatments indicating the need to reconsider current practice of jury and committee voting

broadcasting and sport the broadcasting of sport is heavily regulated our main finding is that common trends and differences in the quality quantity and price of televised sport across europe and usa cannot be adequately explained without reference to policy interventions by national and supranational government and by competition and regulatory authorities these interventions have a significant impact on the organization and governance of sports as well as the structure of broadcasting markets and the conduct of broadcasting companies foreclosure of broadcasting markets through exclusive long term contracts bundling and vertical integration access of viewers to major sporting events and collective selling stand out as the most significant policy issues we conclude by noting a number of policy implications copyright 2003 oxford university press

politics information and the urban bias abstract governments in many ldcs skew public resources towards urban sectors despite a majority of citizens residing in rural areas this paper develops a novel political argument for this urban bias phenomenon in a framework where all voters rural and urban have equal voice but differ in their access to information we argue that this difference is sufficient to give governments an incentive to inefficiently over allocate resources towards urban areas the bias is shown to worsen during adverse economic times leading to increased migration we also examine how voter informativeness affects efficiency of the electoral process in weeding out incompetent governments

information aggregation in polls we study information transmission via polling a policymaker polls constitu ents who differ in their information and ideology to determine policy full rev elation is an equilibrium in a poll with a small sample but not with a large one in large polls full information aggregation can arise in an equilibrium where constituents endogenously sort themselves into centrists who respond truth fully and extremists who do not we find polling statistics that ignore strate gic behavior yield biased estimators and mischaracterize the polvs margin of error we construct estimators that account for strategic behavior finally we compare polls and elections jel c42 d83

choosing not to choose on the link between information and abstention abstract we use a dataset that allows us to circumvent a number of estimation difficulties that have plagued previous studies of the relationship between information and abstention our results show that information is a major determinant of abstention

rational choice theory and the paradox of not voting at least since downs s 1957 seminal work an economic theory of democracy rational choice theorists have appreciated the paradox of not voting in a large election the probability that an individual vote might change the election outcome is vanishingly small if each person only votes for the purpose of influencing the election outcome then even a small cost to vote like a minor schedule conflict or mildly bad weather should dissuade anyone from voting yet it seems that many people will put up with long lines daunting registration requirements and even the threat of physical violence or arrest in order to vote given the central place of voting within political economy the lack of an adequate rational choice model of large elections with costly voting presents an obvious problem for the most part theorists have bypassed the turnout problem either by eliminating voters as strategic actors or by assuming that the decision to vote is independent of other strategic choices the problem with the first approach is that the empirical literature on voting behavior provides considerable evidence of apparently strategic behavior in primary elections there is evidence that voters condition their vote choice on the viability of candidates abramson aldrich paolino and rohde 1992 in a seminal and comprehensive study cox 1997 shows that voting patterns and election outcomes are broadly consistent with patterns of behavior predicted by strategic voting models for example under plurality rule in which the candidate with the most votes wins the election

performance and revenue in professional league football evidence from granger causality tests using a dataset comprising annual performance measured by final league position and gate revenue for 77 football league clubs which maintained unbroken league membership between 1946 and 1994 the relationship between performance and revenue is investigated using cointegration and causality tests a cointegrating relationship between performance and revenue is established in only 10 cases out of 77 although it is argued that some caution is required in interpreting these results due to the low power of the relevant tests in relatively small samples in granger causality tests more evidence is found of causality running from lagged revenue to current performance than of causality in the opposite direction while the dependence of performance on revenue seems to be greater for the smaller clubs than for the larger these results lend empirical support to the popular view that unless checked by mechanisms for revenue redistribution within the league the natural tendency is for success to become concen

the swing voter s curse the authors analyze two candidate elections in which some voters are uncertain about the realization of a state variable that affects the utility of all voters they demonstrate the existence of a swing voter s curse less informed indifferent voters strictly prefer to abstain rather than vote for either candidate even when voting is costless the swing voter s curse leads to the equilibrium result that a substantial fraction of the electorate will abstain even though all abstainers strictly prefer voting for one candidate over voting for another copyright 1996 by american economic association

ignorance and bias in collective decisions we study theoretically and experimentally a committee with common interests committee members do not know which of two alternatives is the best but each member can acquire privately a costly signal before casting a vote under either majority or unanimity rule in the experiment as predicted by bayesian equilibrium voters are more likely to acquire information under majority rule and attempt to counter the bias in favor of one alternative under unanimity rule as opposed to bayesian equilibrium predictions however many committee members vote when uninformed moreover uninformed voting is strongly associated with a lower propensity to acquire information we show that an equilibrium model of subjective prior beliefs can account for both these phenomena and provides a good overall fit to the observed patterns of behavior both in terms of rational ignorance and biases

production functions in the sports industry an empirical analysis of professional cricket production functions are estimated for english county cricket using samples of data for the county championship and the john player league in the seasons of 1981 83 results suggest possible lessons for the management and conduct of the game at the level of the individual club in particular the allocation of resources for developing playing skills the composition of playing staffs selection of teams for particular games and strategies on the field results also provide statistical evidence for some points of conventional wisdom regarding the professional game

competitive balance versus competitive intensity before a match is one of these two concepts more relevant in explaining attendance the case of the french football ligue 1 over the period 2008 2011 the aim of this article is to investigate the determinants of attendance at french football ligue 1 matches over the period 2008 2011 with an emphasis on examining the effects of both competitive balance and intensity before a match competitive balance is measured by the point difference between the two teams concerned by a match in the championship competitive intensity is measured by the point difference for the home team in relation to ranks with sporting stakes results show that competitive balance has an insignificant impact whereas competitive intensity has a significantly positive impact implications are drawn

attendance at australian rules football a panel study the demand for australian rules football is examined using data on attendance at individual matches played between 1981 and 1986 an estimation methodology which is appropriate for a dynamic model with panel data is adopted and it is found that attendance at football is price inelastic and an inferior good the effect of habit in consumption behaviour stadium size uncertainty of outcome and team success are also shown to be important determinants of attendance

the determination of transfer fees in english nonleague football in recent years a number of studies have analysed the player transfer market in english professional football this paper examines whether similar factors operate to determine transfer fees in the semiprofessional or nonleague game an empirical model of the nonleague player transfer market is developed in which observed transfer fees are determined by player characteristics time effects selling club characteristics and buying club characteristics using data on 114 transfer fees covering the period 1988 to 1997 we find evidence that the data generating process for transfer fees is broadly similar in both professional and nonleague football