The question why venture capitalists syndicate their deals has been attract-ing growing attention. The paper analyses how the motives of two types of venture capitalists do differ. Focusing on information costs it expects that venture capitalists with the standard basic know-how in founding and...

Venture capitalist are intermediaries with strong advantages in financing risky investments (Leland/Pyle 1977, Chan 1983, Diamond 1984; Bygrave 1988). Being specialized in one industry, venture capitalists can control risk at lower cost compared to other players in the market (e.g. banking houses)...

Competitive advantage is based on a unique nexus of firm-specific investments that creates inimitable quasi-rents. Because of the impossibility of writing complete contracts, the distribution of the quasi-rents is vulnerable to opportunistic and inefficient behavior. This paper discusses two...

This paper presents estimation results on the size and loyalty of sport teamsÕ sup- porter groups in professional German football. Based on a novel two-stage estimation procedure, we find clear evidence for heterogeneity across teams. In a first stage, a random utility model for a...

Based on the analysis of the specific industry environment in which football clubs compete, this paper presents a comparative institutional analysis of three paradigmatic structures of football club governance: classical (privately owned) football firms, modern football corporations (stock...

Since the Middle Ages, celibacy has been a requirement for those becoming priests in the Roman Catholic Church. In the ongoing discussions about reforms, a wide range of church members have asked for the abolishment of the celibacy requirement in order to meet the changed social and moral...

In order to avoid too many tied games after playing the five-minute overtime period, the National Hockey League introduced two rule changes in the 1999-2000 season. First, a team that loses in overtime receives one point instead of zero points. Second, the number of skaters in overtime is...

Economic theories of superstar emergence concentrate on the perceived quality of the star’s performance. Thus superstars are identified by perceived talent superiority. Information technology and mass media have recently released a new type of stars: celebrities who are just known for being...

We show that both talent and popularity significantly contribute to stars’ market values in German soccer. The talent-versus-popularity controversy on the sources of stardom goes back to Rosen (1981) and Adler (1985). All attempts to resolve the controversy empirically face the difficulty of...

This paper applies contest theory to provide an integrated framework of a team sports league and analyses the competitive interaction between clubs. We show that dissipation of the league revenue arises from `overinvestment' in playing talent as a direct consequence of the ruinous competitive...