HOTEL DEMAND BEFORE,DURING, AND AFTER SPORTS EVENTS: EVIDENCE FROM CHARLOTTE,NORTH CAROLINA

This paper uses daily hotel occupancy data to examine the effects of a wide variety of political and sporting events on the hotel room market of Charlotte, North Carolina from 2005 to 2014. Two political conventions and NASCAR auto races are associated with large increases in hotel occupancy, prices, and revenue, but many other events have no discernable effect on Charlotte's hotel market. The results also indicate that occupancy effects before or after most events are modest at best. Back‐of‐the‐envelope calculations show incremental hotel‐tax receipts fall short of the debt service incurred in constructing and maintaining the city's sports venues. (JEL H71, Z23, Z28)     

Sexual Harassment of Women Working as Room Attendants within 5‐Star Hotels

Given the gendered power relations and the isolated nature of women hotel room attendants' working environments, guest‐initiated sexual harassment experienced by room attendants is a significant, under‐investigated problem. This study of women attendants' experiences of sexual harassment was conducted in 5‐star hotels located on the Gold Coast — a notable tourism destination — of Queensland, Australia. Adopting a socialist–feminist critical theory epistemological perspective, the study used a qualitative constructivist grounded theory methodology. The research reveals the pervasiveness of sexual harassment experienced by women hotel room attendants. In particular, this study illuminates the varied forms, meanings and consequences of sexual harassment in a particular organizational context. In focusing on the interacting effects of the gendered nature of the hotel workplace and the hotel workplace culture, the near‐complete ‘normalization’ of sexual harassment within the hotels is revealed. This outcome is a source of considerable concern, with implications for the industry, for employment relations institutions and for public policy.     

DETERMINANTS OF REVENUE IN SPORTS LEAGUES: AN EMPIRICAL ASSESSMENT

This study investigates determinants of revenue in North America's four major professional sports leagues. Revenue is positively associated with on‐field success in baseball (MLB), basketball (NBA), and hockey (NHL), but not in football (NFL). The returns to success are not diminishing as commonly assumed, which casts doubt on the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis, and differences across leagues are consistent with revenue sharing arrangements. Estimates indicate a strong negative but diminishing relationship between stadium age and revenue. Teams in larger markets generate more revenue than smaller markets, but the returns to success do not differ according to market size. (JEL Z21)     

THE COMBINED EFFECT OF SALARY RESTRICTIONS AND REVENUE SHARING IN SPORTS LEAGUES

Many major sports leagues are characterized by a combination of cross‐subsidization mechanisms like revenue‐sharing arrangements and payroll restrictions. Up to now, the effects of these policy tools have only been analyzed separately. This article provides a theoretical model of a team sports league and analyzes the combined effect of salary restrictions (caps and floors) and revenue sharing. It shows that the effect on club profits, player salaries, and competitive balance crucially depends on the mix of these policy tools. Moreover, the invariance proposition does not hold even under Walrasian‐conjectures if revenue sharing is combined with a salary cap or floor. (JEL L83, C72, L11)     

EVERY DROP COUNTS: A WATER CONSERVATION EXPERIMENT WITH HOTEL GUESTS

We implement a field experiment with hotel guests to measure the effects of nonprice interventions on water conservation and customer satisfaction. In hotels, guests have no direct pecuniary incentive to conserve water, as consumers do at home, where they pay their own water bills. Because hotels earn greater profits when they manage to convince guests to conserve, guests may be suspicious of a hotel's stated social goal of water conservation. By implementing behavioral interventions that address these challenges, we find that our nudges can induce guests to reduce their water consumption, even when no direct monetary incentive is provided. Using post‐stay customer surveys, we detected no adverse effects on customer satisfaction due to these nudges. (JEL D12, I31, Q41, Q50)     

THE IMPACT OF FISCAL POLICY ON PROFITS

This paper investigates the impact of fiscal policy on profits using panel data for 18 high‐income OECD countries during the period 1975–1999. We estimate a profit equation allowing a consistent treatment of the government budget constraint, and we try to disentangle the effects of different spending and taxation items. As far as public spending is concerned, our results strongly suggest that capital expenditures are associated with higher profits, while expenditures on goods and services and in particular on wages and salaries deteriorate profits. In general, “productive” expenditures seem to increase profits while the effect of “unproductive” expenditures is insignificant. Transport and communication expenditures seem to have a positive impact on profits. On the revenue side, we find that both direct and indirect taxation has a negative impact on profits. (JEL E62, H32, H54)     

OUTCOME UNCERTAINTY,FAN TRAVEL,AND AGGREGATE ATTENDANCE

The uncertainty of outcome hypothesis (UOH) informs economists' understanding of consumer decisions to attend sporting events and team revenue generation. We develop a model of fan behavior based on standard expected utility methods which incorporates fan heterogeneity in terms of decisions to travel to away games and strong preferences for wins. The model reflects aggregate attendance outcomes across local and visiting fans, generates predictions consistent with the UOH, and gives rise to concave league-wide revenue functions. Empirical analysis of game outcomes and attendance at regular season National Basketball association games from 1979 to 2013 supports key predictions of the model. (JEL L83, D12, Z20)     

KIDS OR CASH? EXPLORING CHARTER SCHOOL RESPONSES TO DECLINING GOVERNMENT REVENUES

While the literature is extensive on school districts' revenue sources, less research has been done on the impact of donations on school district funds. In this paper, we extend the theoretical literature on crowding out of private donations by government grants for one type of nonprofit firm, namely charter schools. The theoretical model leads us to focus on the key relationships among fundraising effort, enrollment (which is tied to federal and state funding) and donations. Using a dataset on Texas charter schools we adopt a two-stage approach to examine the empirical relationship between changes in nondonor revenues and the donations received by charter schools. Like the extensive empirical estimates of the effects of government grants on donations for other types of nonprofit firms, we find evidence of crowding-out with respect to our sample of charter schools. We also find a significant, positive effect of fundraising on donations with a $1 increase in fundraising associated to a $0.58 increase in donations, a pattern consistent with overinvestment in fundraising. Enrollments exhibit a robust inverse relationship to changes in nondonor revenues. (JEL H00, H32, H50)     

CYCLICAL TAX ENFORCEMENT

We wonder whether tax enforcement varies along the economic cycle and aim at answering that question from a positive perspective by means of survey data for the Spanish case (1994–2015). According to a fiscal capacity argument, tax enforcement might be stronger in times of crisis (counter-cyclical), but if the tax administration prioritizes taxpayers' welfare over public revenue, enforcement might be slacker (procyclical). We find tax enforcement is not immune to the state of the economy. In particular, it presents a prevailing counter-cyclical trend, but in presence of a severe economic crisis it turns out to be procyclical. (JEL D78, H12, H26, H83)     

Episodic Volunteering at a Religious Megaevent

In preparation for Pope Francis's visit to Philadelphia and the 2015 World Meeting of Families, organizers looked for thousands of volunteers to help carry out these events. This is common for many one‐time and episodic events, such as large sporting events (from marathons to Special Olympics), arts and cultural events (such as festivals and concerts), and fundraising events. After the pope's visit, volunteers were asked to respond to a questionnaire about their experiences and the volunteer management of the event; 2,408 responded (34.4 percent). Data on motivation, who volunteered, recruitment, training, assignment, supervision, communication, satisfaction, and suggestions for improvement were elicited. We focused on episodic volunteering at a religious event and on a broad spectrum of issues pertaining to management of episodic volunteers. Our findings add to the knowledge regarding volunteer management and also add to conceptual understanding of the distinction between ongoing and episodic volunteers.     

The Interlocking of Gender with Nationality,Race, Ethnicity and Class: the Narratives of Women in Hotel Work

Whilst gender in the workplace is has been extensively researched, investigation into how gender interacts with other factors such as ethnicity and class has been less explicitly considered. This article explores the interlocking of gender with other categories such as class, ethnicity, race and nationality in the context of hotel work. It draws on the narratives of women describing their experiences of working in hotels. Findings from this empirically based examination suggest that gendered and other representations at work are not constructed as a process of adding difference on to difference, where categories are considered as separate and fixed. Instead, what emerges is a negotiation of the many categories shaping identities at work, which exist simultaneously and shift according to context.     

Aliens,Subjects and the State: Surveillance in British Hotels during World War I

The apparatus of the state expanded in unprecedented ways during World War I, with implications for longstanding practices and legal principles which governed the relationship between guests and staff within hotels and similar lodgings. Commercial hostelries were required, under successive Orders in Council, to register the movement of guests and supply these details to police authorities on state-mandated forms. This idea was new to the United Kingdom, where jurisprudence had upheld the right of guests to receive accommodation in anonymity. Exploring how institutions grappled with new regimes of surveillance, this article reveals how the British hotel’s relationship to the state and to guests of all nationalities changed dramatically in the course of war, with implications for the operation of the post-war hospitality sector.     

EDUCATION'S GAMBLING PROBLEM: EARMARKED LOTTERY REVENUES AND CHARITABLE DONATIONS TO EDUCATION

I examine the impact that lotteries introduced to support education have on voluntary contributions to education. State lotteries, and the causes they are introduced to support, are highly publicized. This provides the opportunity to assess whether donors are crowded‐out by government spending of which they are almost certainly aware. Using donor‐level survey data and nonprofits' tax returns, I find that donations to education‐related organizations fall with the introduction of a lottery. This result is driven by donors' response to the new (highly publicized) government revenue source (rather than a decrease in nonprofit fundraising efforts). (JEL D64, H3, H75)     

Financial Sustainability Within UK Charities: Community Sport Trusts and Corporate Social Responsibility Partnerships

The change in political leadership in the UK in 2010 has created financial uncertainty and instability for many third sector organisations. In a shifting funding landscape, it is clear that an over-reliance on Government funding is a risky strategy and that there is a need to diversify and seek out alternative sources of revenue. This article considers the impact of political change on the financial sustainability of community sports trusts associated with Premier League and Football League clubs in England. It explores sources of revenue through the analysis of financial statements, revealing that on average community sports trusts receive a significant proportion of income from grant funding whilst sponsorship income is relatively small. The article goes on to discuss the potential for community sports trusts to diversify revenue streams by developing social partnerships that address the corporate social responsibility (CSR) agendas of commercial organisations. It illustrates that although commercial sponsorship can provide benefits including the provision of additional funding that can enable financial stability, key issues include the balance of power, the impact on organisational flexibility, whether there is a need to restructure, and the development of long-term partnerships. Although the findings from this article are focused on a particular type of charity, given the importance of CSR partnership income for the charities sector they may also have broader implications for other charitable organisations.     

Rethinking non-traditional resistance at work: The case of the Indian Diaspora in Mauritius

Resistance at work can take many forms and be theorised in multiple ways. In this paper, I use postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha's concepts of mimicry, ambivalence and hybridity to explore non-traditional forms of resistance among Indo-Mauritians working in the hotel industry. I employ a two-stage qualitative research approach by conducting focus groups in eight hotels in Mauritius followed by focused ethnography with 20 Indo-Mauritians. The findings reveal that the Indian diasporic community is actively engaging with its past (India) through the materiality of its home, its sacred space and its use of Bhojpuri to communicate. By unfolding and maintaining its difference, it is constantly demarcating its personal space from that of the Other. As this behaviour extends to the workplace, salient forms of non-traditional resistance surface in rural regions.     

THE CULTURE OF CORRUPTION,TAX EVASION,AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

This study uses a dynamic general equilibrium model to quantify the effects of corruption and tax evasion on fiscal policy and economic growth. The model is calibrated to match estimates of tax evasion in developing countries. The calibrated model is able to generate reasonable predictions for net tax rates, the corruption associated with public investment projects, and the negative correlation between corruption and tax revenue. The presence of corruption and evasion is shown to have significant, but not large, negative effects on economic growth. The relatively moderate effects help explain the absence of a robust negative correlation between growth and corruption in cross‐country data. The model also implies that cracking down on tax evasion before addressing corruption can be a bad idea and that higher wages for public officials can improve welfare. (JEL H3, O4)     

GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION,LAND MARKET,AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT: EVIDENCE FROM CHINESE CITIES

This article investigates how government intervention in land market affects China's urban development, using data from prefecture‐level cities between 2000 and 2010. We find that government intervention enlarges the impact of positive productivity shocks on housing price appreciation, through mainly the government control over residential land supply. However, we find no significant evidence that high government intervention constrains population growth and leads to wage increase. Such patterns of urban dynamics can be explained by the fact that migrant workers are the driving force behind China's urbanization, but they have limited housing demand and are not well compensated. (JEL P52, R12, H11)     

PROFIT‐MAXIMIZING GATE REVENUE SHARING IN SPORTS LEAGUES

In this article, I examine how sports leagues can use gate revenue sharing to coordinate talent investments and maximize club profits. Gate revenue sharing reduces incentives to invest in talent. Initially lower investments boost profits, because total costs go down, but investing less also shrinks revenues, which harms profits at higher levels of sharing. The league maximizes profits by setting a sharing rule, which balances these two effects. Gate revenue sharing decreases talent investments more strongly in leagues with heterogeneous rather than homogeneous local market sizes. As a result, the profit‐maximizing level of sharing is higher for relatively homogeneous leagues. This implies that more balanced leagues are expected to share more gate revenues than less balanced leagues. It also explains why gate revenue sharing is widely used in the U.S. major leagues, while it is largely absent in European soccer. (JEL L41, L83)     

DYNASTIC POLITICAL PRIVILEGE AND ELECTORAL ACCOUNTABILITY: THE CASE OF U.S. GOVERNORS, 1950–2005

This paper examines the impact of dynastic political privilege on the behavior of incumbents. Incumbents have opportunities to serve themselves at the expense of voters, but society can design political institutions to mitigate these principal‐agent problems. Dynastic political privilege may be one such mechanism. We argue that the possibility that opportunistic behavior in office may damage family members' political prospects disciplines incumbents. We test this hypothesis using data for 1950–2005 on U.S. governors, including a new data set on the family relationships of politicians, and find that dynastic political privilege increases incumbent accountability. (JEL H71, H10)     

THE EFFECTS OF PUBLIC SPENDING COMPOSITION ON FIRM PRODUCTIVITY

This paper exploits the unique institutional features of South Africa to estimate the impact of provincial public spending on firm productivity. In contrast to existing microeconomic evidence, we explore the effects of fiscal expenditures and remove the effects of revenue raising policies. Our identification strategy is based on differences in the effects of public spending across firms within the same industry and province. We show that public spending composition affects productivity depending on the capital intensity of firms, with less capital intensive firms being particularly affected. These effects appear to be robust. (JEL D24, H32, H72)