This paper identifies matches on the male and female professional tennis tours in which one player faces a high payoff from being “on the bubble” of direct entry into one of the lucrative Grand Slam tournaments, while their opposition does not. Analyzing over 378,000 matches provides strong...

This paper identifies matches on the male and female professional tennis tours in which one player faces a high payoff from being “on the bubble” of direct entry into one of the lucrative Grand Slam tournaments, while their opposition does not. Analyzing over 378,000 matches provides strong...

We estimate the relationship between international youth and professional tennis rankings. We find no difference between the predictiveness of rankings from age 14 & Under versus age 16 & Under competitions. The most persistent predictor of professional success is beating older top ranked...

We estimate the relationship between international youth and professional tennis rankings. We find no difference between the predictiveness of rankings from age 14 & Under versus age 16 & Under competitions. The most persistent predictor of professional success is beating older top ranked...

This paper revisits the question of why more open countries tend to have bigger governments. We replicate successfully the main results of Ram (2009), who rejects the role of country size as an omitted variable. However, several extensions advise against a hasty conclusion: The results differ...

This paper analyzes potential gender differences in competitive environments using a sample of over 100,000 professional tennis matches. Focusing on two phenomena of the labor and sports economics literature, we find robust evidence for (i) the hot-hand effect (an additional win in the most...

What leads the United Nations Security Council to intervene in one conflict, but remain inactive in others of similar magnitude and cruelty? This paper analyzes all registered 178 internal and internationalized internal conflicts since 1945, with the goal to unveil what determines the...

Countries with diversi ed export baskets take advantage of various bene ts, which are said to foster and stabilize economic growth directly and through indirect channels (e.g. reduced income volatility, positive externalities, spillover e ects). This is especially important in the context of...

Is corruption capable of spreading across national borders? This paper uses panel data for 120 countries from 1995 to 2012 to evaluate whether the corruption levels ofneighboring countries, as weighted by the relative joint border length, affects domestic corruption. Including country fixed...

This paper proposes urbanization as a determinant of government size. As people move to cities, their demand for a more de ned set of regulations, but also for basic health, education, and income standards rises. Our theoretical framework determines how the regional distribution of the...