In this comprehensive Handbook, John Goddard and Peter Sloane present a collection of analytical contributions by internationally regarded scholars in the field, which extensively examine the many economic challenges facing the world's most popular team sport.

The paper explains the large differences in cross-country productivity performance by modeling and testing the effects of social barriers to communication on productivity and capital accumulation. In an optimal growth model, social barriers to communication that impede the formation of knowledge...

This article investigates the determinants of attendance at New Zealand matches in the Super 12 rugby union competition from 1999 to 2001. Emphasis is placed on testing the effects of within-season and match uncertainty of outcome on demand. A general to specific model selection approach, using...

We examine the impact of proposed changes in US legislation to allow greater use of concentrated dairy products when producing fresh milk commodities. Although this change will allow dairy producers to partially circumvent high tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) for fresh milk products, changes in dairy...

The paper analyses how barriers to communication across social groups affect economy-wide productivity and factor accumulation. Using a dynamic model of an economy that includes a reproducible capital stock (physical or human) and effective labour, social barriers to communication are shown to...

In this chapter, Quentin Grafton, Stephen Knowles and Dorian Owen examine the implications for productivity arising from the level of social diversity along a variety of dimensions, including ethnic, linguistic and religious differences and inequalities between rich and poor. Their basic...

The paper analyzes how social barriers to communication affect economy-wide productivity and factor accumulation. Using a dynamic model of an economy that includes a reproducible capital stock (physical or human) and effective labor, a negative relationship is shown to exist between social...

The paper introduces the concept of social divergence defined as the social barriers to communication and exchange between individuals and groups of individuals within a society. Social divergence is determined by the characteristics of a society including the distribution of income,...