This paper deals with a novel problem of price search in a world where futures markets play an important role. In the absence of the futures market, customers are unable to tell whether a high spot quote reflects a fundamental change in market conditions or whether they have run into a...

Customers carrying out a costly search among dealers for the best bid or offer are unable to tell whether an unfavorable quote reflects a change in market fundamentals or whether they have met a high margin dealer. The optimal search strategy in the presence of a futures market is shown to have...

The impact on the demand for a gambling product of the introduction of a competing product is a topical issue in Britain, Ireland and elsewhere. We consider empirically the demand for Lotto itself and for fixed-odds betting on the Lotto draw. The evidence suggests that these products are...

The impact on demand for a gambling product of the introduction of a competing product is a topical issue in Britain, Ireland and elsewhere. We consider empirically the demand for Lotto itself and for fixed-odds betting on Lotto draw. The evidence suggests that these products are complements....

Economic theory proposes that consumers are primarily concerned with increasing the mean and reducing the variance of the payoff when choosing between products the return to which is uncertain. This approach fails to explain the popularity of Lotto and other forms of gambling. The highly skewed...

This paper develops a theoretical model of how bookmakers' odds are determined, given varying levels of inside information on the part of punters. Bookmakers' attitudes towards risk and the degree of competition between them will influence bookmaker behaviour. Using a data set of 1,696 races in...

This paper develops a theoretical model of how bookmakers’ odds are determined, given varying levels of inside information on the part of punters. Bookmakers’ attitudes towards risk and the degree of competition between them will influence bookmaker behaviour. Using a data set of 1696 races...

Using nominal and real exchange rates for Ireland relative to Germany and the UK from 1975 to 2003, this article explores likely sources of nonlinearity in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) relationships and difficulties in employing an I(1)/I(0) econometric framework. Tests for fractional...

As of January 1, 1995, Israel's National Health Insurance (NHI) Law laid the foundations for regulating competition among the country's four private, not-for-profit sick funds. Prior to NHI the sick funds (SFs) had competed without governmental control. Extensive research on NHI implementation...