Presidential Popularity and Reputation

This paper reports on the results of an empirical study of relationships between the popularity of US presidents and economic variables. Traditionally, these relationships are based on the hypothesis that voters hold the incumbent President responsible for the economic situation. We derive an alternative specification of popularity, based on the hypothesis that political parties perform better on different issues. Empirical evidence turns out to be strongly in favour of our hypothesis. Our findings have important implications for studies on government behaviour in which it is assumed that one of the objectives of administrations is to maximise votes

Exclusivity and Antitrust in Media Markets: The Case of Pay-TV in Europe

This paper challenges the traditional economic reasons supporting copyright licensing exclusivity in dealership agreements in media markets. It is argued how exclu- sive dealings in contents distributions acted in Europe as barriers to entry and/or raising rivals’ costs strategies against new Pay-TV operators. The removal of exclusive dealing clauses, as recently implemented by the European Commission, can be economically justi- fied when it generates positive impact on technological innovation and on the development of alternative transmission platforms for the delivery of multimedia services. Recent European Antitrust decisions seem to encourage a new ‘open access approach’ for premium contents distribution in media industry