Catholic schools compete with public schools but may also cream-skim. The endogeneity of private school enrollment necessitates 2SLS. Measures of Catholic sex abuse scandals instrument for Catholic school enrollment. We find that competition from Catholic schools raises public school test scores.

The relationship between hate group activity and hate crime is theoretically ambiguous. Hate groups may incite criminal behavior in support of their beliefs. On the other hand, hate groups may reduce hate crime by serving as a forum for members to verbally vent their frustrations or as...

Analyzing the peer assessment category of the US News and World Report's America's Best Colleges rankings, we find that universities fielding a Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) team are more highly rated by administrators and faculty at peer institutions. Universities are also more highly rated...

Public funds to build sports stadiums are commonly justified by the perceived economic impacts and civic pride they create for the community. Since the 1980s, there have been many studies looking at the economic impact and civic pride created by professional sports teams. Most of the literature...

Comparing talent across time is difficult as productivity changes. To compare talent across time we utilize Major League baseball data from 1871-2010 and time series techniques to determine if the mean and standard deviation of five performance measures are stationary and if structural breaks...

Many states are outlawing the use of affirmative action, which has lead to the use of inefficient measures as a substitute. I show that schools still use affirmative action in the application process because of a down-stream demand from employers.

NASCAR’s reward structure for rank order tournaments has been considered the exception to the rule in tournament theory due to the linear payout structure. We suggest that the rewards for drivers are nonlinear when you take into consideration the value of sponsorship time on camera and sponsor...

Corporate sponsorship plays an important role in the entertainment business. The question becomes: what influences the value of a sponsorship contract? Empirical analysis of this question is relatively limited because of a lack of complete data on contract values. This is especially true in...

There are many events that led up to the financial crisis of 2008. This study looks at the political policies in place before the crisis happened. Focusing on the decade and a half prior to the crisis, the incentives in the financial industry led to risk mitigation. This response to mitigate...

National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing’s (NASCAR) monetary reward structure uses a linear payout for races, with a nonlinear payout for the season long tournament. The authors suggest that the season long nonlinear payout is magnified by taking into consideration the value of...