The link between team payroll and competitive balance plays a central role in the theory of team sports but is seldom investigated empirically. This paper uses data on team payrolls in Major League Baseball between 1980 and 2000 to examine the link and implements Granger causality tests to...

This paper critically analyzes the rules of the UEFA financial regulatory system for football clubs known as Financial Fair Play (FFP). I argue that the objectives of FFP are not really fairness but financial efficiency and that the rules are unlikely to achieve efficiency. I also contend that...

Insolvency is an endemic problem in the world of European football. This paper uses a unique database of financial accounts for English football clubs between 1974 and 2010 to examine the causes of insolvency. Two alternative hypotheses are considered- “irrational exuberance”, meaning that...

This paper considers the financial crisis of 2008 and its likely impact on English football, notably the English Premier League. It mostly examines the history of financial instability and sporting stability, in the sense of club survival, that is characteristic of English football and possibly...

In this paper, we discuss from an economic perspective two alternative views of restrictions of competition by sports associations. The horizontal approach views such restrictions as an agreement among the participants of a sports league with the sports association merely representing an...

The conventional model of a team sports league is based on the North American major leagues which have a fixed number of members, entry is rare and only granted by permission of the incumbents (the closed system). European soccer leagues operate a system of promotion and relegation, effectively...

In this paper, we discuss from an economic perspective two alternative views of restrictions of competition by sports associations. The horizontal approach views such restrictions as an agreement among the participants of a sports league with the sports association merely representing an...

Hosting the Olympic Games costs billions of taxpayer dollars. Following a quasi- experimental setting, this paper assesses the intangible impact of the London 2012 Olympics, using a novel panel of 26,000 residents in London, Paris, and Berlin during the summers of 2011, 2012, and 2013. We show...