Economists have generally supposed that certainty and severity of punishment deter crime and have been surprised whenever this is not confirmed by empirical word. This paper gives a number of explanations, consistent with economic theory, as to why there need not be a contradiction here. The...

A recent development in the UK television industry has been the emergence of satellite and cable broadcasting. We examine the entrance of the BSkyB satellite network into the coverage of the first division of the rugby football league over the 1993-94 season. This paper extends the familiar...

Greek cigarette comsumption is examined by combining work by Zanias (1987) and Becker et al. (1994). Application of Becker et al.'s lead consumption term to the Zanias model yields results that do not strongly support the rational addiction model and show price and income as insignificant.

This paper estimates Becker's rational addiction model using a demand for cinema equation. The results do not seem to be strongly supportive of the rational addiction model. As in Becker, Murphy, Grossman we find a significant coefficient on the lead consumption term and a quite plausible...