Letter markets are still highly regulated in many countries. The European Commission, however, plans to liberalize letter markets in all member states within this decade. We describe the economic characteristics of letter markets, identify four likely regulatory scenarios, and analyze business...

Letter markets are still highly regulated in most countries. Some countries, such as those of the European Union, plan to liberalize letter markets within this decade. Competition will provide many new challenges and opportunities for established and new players. In this paper we analyze...

This paper develops a contest model of a professional sports league in which clubs maximize a weighted sum of profits and wins (utility maximization). The model analyzes how more win-orientated behavior of certain clubs affects talent investments, competitive balance and club profits. Moreover,...

This paper develops a model of a professional sports league with network externalities by integrating the theory of two-sided markets into a contest model. In professional team sports, the competition of the clubs functions as a platform that enables sponsors to interact with fans. In these...

This paper outlines how the theory of contests is applied to professional team sports leagues. In the first part, we present the traditional Tullock contest and explain some basic properties of the equilibrium. We will then extend this static contest to a two-period model in order to analyze...

This paper outlines and compares the organizational structure of major sports leagues, explores the reasoning behind their formation, and derives implications for salary caps in European football. To understand why sports leagues have developed a specific organizational structure, one must take...

In this paper, we examine how the number of African American and White American coaches in college basketball evolved since 1947. Particularly, we focus on 1973 when the league split up. The separation created asymmetric regulatory requirements. This led to a significant difference in the number...