Recent decades have witnessed major changes in the market for European soccer. The most profound were the Bosman ruling, which lifted restrictions in the European labor market for soccer talent, and the introduction of the Champions’ League, a high-profile international competition that...

This paper is concerned with investigating the role of accounting practices in radical change processes. The institutional framework has been taken as a starting point in investigating these processes. The research has been carried out at the Dutch Railways. This company was forced by the Dutch...

We analyze the BBC TV game show “The Weakest Link”, using data from 77 episodes, covering 13,380 questions. We focus on the banking decision, where a contestant chooses to secure an amount of money for the eventual winner, or to risk it on a general knowledge question. In the latter case,...

Abstract We study the role of takeover threats as a corporate control mechanism using Aghion and Tirole's (1997) model of formal and real authority. Shareholders do not monitor the manager's actions, since ownership is widely dispersed. A corporate raider may monitor, and steps in if a prot...

For centuries, there have been discussions as to whether only experts can judge the quality of cultural output, or whether the taste of the public also has merit. This paper tries to resolve that question empirically, using national finals of the Eurovision Song Contest. We show that experts are...

We show that the principle of minimum differentiation holds in two-round elections, for any number of candidates, regardless of the presence of entrants, or the distribution of voters’ preferences.

We present a model which combines elements of an auction and a rent-seeking contest. Players compete for a prize. Apart from exerting lobbying efforts, they also have to submit a bid which is payable only if they win the prize. First, we analyze the model if the returns-to-scale parameters of...

We study the role of takeover threats as a corporate control mechanism using Aghion and Tirole's (1997) model of formal and real authority. Shareholders do not monitor the manager's actions, since ownership is widely dispersed. A corporate raider may monitor, and steps in if a profit opportunity...

Abstract We analyse the development of world records speed skating from 1893 to 2000 for both men and women. The historical data show that it is likely that the relation between skating speed and distance of the various events is non-linear and converges to a limit value. We pay special...

We extend the citizen candidate framework by allowing for endogenous party formation. When a party is formed, any member of that party that wants to be a candidate in the election, first has to run in the primary election of her party. We show that in equilibrium one left-wing and one right-wing...