As New Zealand charts its course toward a low-emissions economy, the quality of energy-sector and multi-sector modelling is becoming increasingly important. This paper outlines why models are useful for answering complex questions, provides a stocktake of energy-sector and multi-sector models...

In the 1990s, rural areas and small towns in the United States, which had been losing population, became the destinations for an increasing number of Hispanic immigrants and their families, slowing and in some cases reversing population declines. In this paper, we examine whether faster growth...

Sport event promoters aim to organize them to get the best return on their investment. The purpose of this study is to learn better how to manage the event to maximize the benefit to the host area. Most studies on economic impact of sporting events focus on mega events or look for an impact in...

This paper looks for evidence that either a NASCAR track or NASCAR-sanctioned event influences the monthly rents on residential units. The evidence is mixed, varying with the treatment of housing units located in or out of central cities of standard metropolitan statistical areas (SMSAs), as...

We analyze voting on subsidies for professional sports facilities in Harris County (Houston), Texas and Brown County (Green Bay), Wisconsin to learn more about voter preferences for these subsidies. The results differ somewhat between the two jurisdictions, as do the nature of the supports being...

This study adds to our knowledge of the effects of mega-events like Super Bowls and Major League Baseball All-Star games by looking specifically at a long time-series of monthly sales tax revenues to assess the impact of these events on the host city’s revenue. The analysis indicates that...

This paper explores the relationship between special-interest groups and volatility of GDP growth. In an unbalanced panel of 108 countries, we find a significant negative relationship between the number of interest groups in a country and the volatility of GDP growth.

We develop a consumer choice model of live attendance at a sporting event with reference-dependent preferences. The predictions of the model motivate the “uncertainty of outcome hypothesis” (UOH) as well as fan’s desire to see upsets and to simply see the home team win games, depending on...

This paper explores the relationship between special-interest groups and volatility of GDP growth. In an unbalanced panel of 108 countries, we find a significant negative relationship between the number of interest groups in a country and the volatility of GDP growth.

We check the robustness of Feldstein’s finding that Social Security reduces private saving to two specifications not considered before in the literature: (1) constraining the coefficients on Social Security and household net worth to be equal; and (2) allowing the effect of wealth on...