The paper analyses the impact of the relatively belated move to professionalism in Rugby Union. We use data on match attendance for 3,667 fixtures in European club Rugby over 15 seasons to estimate the effect of competitive balance on attendance. We find that (short- and medium-term) competitive...

Using data from 1,226 matches played over 18 seasons, we analyse match attendances in the group stages of the European Rugby Cup (ERC). We find that short-run (match) uncertainty had little effect on attendances. This finding is significant as the ERC has been replaced by a new competition which...

The paper presents results from two natural experiments on the impact of revenue sharing and salary caps on competitive balance in sports leagues arising from the introduction of professionalism in Rugby Union in 1995. The first involves the English Premiership, which traditionally applied a...

This paper examines whether the presence of parameter instabilities in dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models affects their forecasting performance. We apply this analysis to medium-scale DSGE models with and without financial frictions for the US economy. Over the forecast period...