Physical activity level is becoming more recognized as a primary factor in overall human health and obesity. Humans possess a number of traits that influence their physical activity level. We examined whether having a high or low desire to engage in challenging mental activity predicted...

In this paper we use data from an internet-based survey and estimate the benefits of an oyster consumption safety policy with the contingent valuation method. In addition to providing a context specific estimate of willingness-to-pay for oyster safety, we consider two unresolved issues in the...

North American cities have long encouraged redevelopment of their downtown cores to counteract the flight of residents and business to the suburbs in the postwar period. Building subsidized arenas and stadiums for professional sports teams downtown became common in the 1960s. In recent years,...

Akerlof (2012, 2013) has argued individuals often do not behave according to rational expectations. He shows how buyers in a complete lemon’s market are worse off if they behave irrationally---like loons. We examine several different lemon’s market situations (including when workers may...

This paper examines the role of economic freedom in the empirical relationship between business cycle volatility and long-run growth across countries. In a diverse sample of 99 countries, it is shown that accounting for economic freedom’s influence on volatility mitigates or even eliminates...

Two recent articles in the Journal of Sports Economics have analyzed compensation discrimination in the National Football League. Keefer (2013) found white linebackers were paid a premium while Burnett and Van Scyoc (2013) find no white premium for either rookie linebackers or rookie offensive...

Even in historically water-rich areas, population growth and drought put pressure on water supplies. Understanding public attitudes about water management and, especially water conservation, may become increasingly salient as these regions attempt to address water supply issues. Using the...

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...

The combination and joint estimation of revealed and stated preference (RP/SP) data approach to examining consumer preferences to relevant policy-based measures typically fail to account for heterogeneity in the data by considering behavior of the average individual. However, in policy-based...

Using NFL data from 2000 to 2008, we test for compensation discrimination on career earnings in the NFL. We use both the traditional dummy variable technique applied to Ordinary Least Squares regression as well as quantile regression analysis to measures the effect of race on earnings. We focus...