Rose & Spiegel (2011) find that Olympic Games host countries experience significant positive, lasting effects on exports. They interpret their results as an indication that countries use the hosting of such events to signal openness and competitiveness. We challenge these empirical findings on...

We project the medal number and medal ranking for the Olympic Games in London in 2012. The largest relative increase is predicted for Brazil (80% more medals) and the UK (+28%).UK will conti-nue to rank 4th. The largest decreases in medal numbers are predicted for Australia (-13%, but remains in...

The relative standard deviation of win percentages, the most widely used measure of within-season competitive balance, has an upper bound which is very sensitive to variation in the numbers of teams and games played. Taking into account this upper bound provides additional insight into...

This paper develops a new simulation-based measure of playoff uncertainty and investigates its contribution to modelling match attendance compared to other variants of playoff uncertainty in the existing literature. A model of match attendance that incorporates match uncertainty, playoff...

This paper re-examines the calculation of the relative standard deviation (RSD) measure of competitive balance in leagues in which draws are possible outcomes. Some key conclusions emerging from the exchange between Cain and Haddock (2006) and Fort (2007) are reversed. There is no difference,...

Bonus point systems are a popular tournament design feature in some sports. We consider a bonus point system for the Australian Football League (AFL). In this paper, we utilise league points as a measure of team strength in a prediction model and choose the allocation of points to maximise...

Bonus points provide a simple way to improve the accuracy of league standings. We investigate the inclusion of bonuses in the National Football League (NFL) using a prediction model built on league points. Both touchdown-based and narrow-loss bonuses are shown to be significant. Our preferred...

Using the case of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, this study is the first to test the employment effects of a mega-sporting event on the basis of data that are both regional and sectoral. It is also the first study of sporting events to use a non-parametric test method. Earlier studies on the World Cup...

This study analyses for the first time on the basis of a multivariate analysis ex post the effects on the jobs market of a soccer World Cup, in this case the 2006 World Cup held in Germany. In addition to three methods already used for other analyses in studies of sporting events, an extended...

Olympic Games may have impacts on income and employment in the host city, but no ex post study has been carried out for European Olympic host cities to date. The present study closes this gap using the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. The data period examined in this study allows for analysis of...