This article is an exploratory investigation of the distributional properties of market index returns using J. W. Tukey's g and h distributions. Specifically, it is shown that over sufficiently long periods of time, the distribution of the market index is adequately explained as a skewed,...

This study focuses on individual home run hitting in Major League Baseball. It is observed that the distribution of the rate of home run hitting is highly right skewed, but it is becoming discernibly less so over time. Frequencies of the lowest rates have been decreasing, whereas the frequencies...

At the mathematical level, a factor or principal component of a factor analysis is simply a linear combination of variables under some constraints. Therefore, as in regression analysis, there are conditions under which individual or joint observations can be influential in the sense that their...

This paper examines the relationship between team payroll and team performance in major league baseball from 1985 to 2002. The results indicate that the relationship has changed over time. Unlike the early years, there is now a much clearer relationship between payroll and performance....

This paper examines team performance in the NBA over the last five decades. It was motivated by two previous observational studies, one of which studied the winning percentages of professional baseball teams over time, while the other examined individual player performance in the NBA. These...

The topic of improved performances by athletes in both team and individual sports has shown that each sport has its own unique set of characteristics and these have to be analysed accordingly. This paper presents an extensive analysis of the nature and extent of improvement in golf by analysing...