Competitive balance and TV audience: An empirical analysis on the Italian Serie A

This paper investigates the behaviour of the “couch potato” audience in regards to the Italian Football League - Serie A - during the 2008/09 season. Using data from 380 matches, we considered a collection of variables suitable to influence the share of TV audience of satellite television. According to the standard prescriptions of sports economics literature and assessing peculiarities of Italian context, we estimated the “Football on TV’s” demand by an OLS regression model. Rating the dependent variable of TV audience by the share registered in each match, we introduced a set of independent variables in order to approximate match quality, the programme schedule placement, the follow-up of the involved teams and their rank. As other theoretical and empirical investigations have focused on Spanish and English championships, our attention concentrates particularly on the relationship between the closeness of the game and the television audience. In the regression model, uncertainty of outcome has been measured extracting information from the Italian fixed odds betting market. We found that all the theoretical expected relationships have been confirmed by the econometric analysis. In spite of the statistical significance of the outcome uncertainty on share, the estimation points out that more then 90% of variability concerning TV audience has been explained net of uncertainty factors and that the impact of a closest context on dependent variable is marginal. The overestimation of the role of match uncertainty on TV audience could support the opinion of top team’s management opposing the return to the collective bargaining of TV rights starting from next season, 2010/11, fixed by the law 9/2008 of Italian Parliament. In football context the competitive balance should then be considered a “meritorius good”, far from market assessment.

Win the best, win the largest or win the richest. Some empirical evidence from Italian championships

This paper uses an econometric model to evaluate the impact of variables influencing the long period competitive balance in Italian football league. Using records of the last 75 tournaments and adopting as a measure of market size both a demand and a supply side perspective, the paper aims at establishing if the theoretical prescriptions on the long run competitive balance holds for the Italian championships. This approach allows us to evaluate if teams outperform their market size and to extract a ranking of the best and worst teams in the last 75 years.

Why do underground reducing policies often fail their scope? Some answers from the Italian experience

Irregular labour input; enforcement; Fiscal Authority efficiency; regularization policy; incentives in the firm’s tax structure

Compatibilidad en la convivencia entre la sociedad y el arbolado de calle en un sector de la ciudad de Mendoza, Argentina

El estudio muestra el importante rol que juega el arbolado de calle en la mejora del ambiente urbano y la necesidad de considerar la compatibilidad entre aquel y la sociedad para lograr una convivencia en armonía que beneficie a ambos. Esto tiene gran significación en la ciudad de Mendoza, porque el árbol viario contribuye al bienestar humano en un medio natural poco favorable, además constituye un legado histórico, digno de preservar. El estudio analiza la relación sociedad-árbol de calle desde distintas dimensiones para evaluar el grado de compatibilidad en su convivencia. Estos aspectos y sus respectivas variables se analizan de manera interrelacionada en cada sector espacial, por lo que se usa la metodología sistémica. Como resultado principal, se obtuvo una tipología de cuadras según ese grado de compatibilidad, lo que permitió evidenciar situaciones favorables y otras con problemas, ante los cuales fue posible proponer alternativas de solución.The study shows the important role that plays tree streets in the improvement of the urban environment and the need to consider the compatibility between it and society to achieve coexistence in harmony that benefits both. This has great significance in the city of Mendoza, because the road tree contributes to human well-being in an unfavorable natural environment, is also a historic legacy, worthy of preserving. The study analyzes the relationship society-woodland street from different dimensions to evaluate the degree of compatibility in their coexistence. These aspects and their respective variables are analyzed so interrelated in every space sector, so the systemic methodology is used. As a main result, obtained a typology of blocks depending on the degree of compatibility, allowing you to demonstrate favorable situations and others with problems, to which it was possible to propose alternative solutions.Fil: Domizio, María Cecilia. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Filosofía y Letra

Status of the CUORE and CUORE-0 experiments at Gran Sasso

CUORE is a 741 kg array of TeO2 bolometers for the search of neutrinoless double beta decay in 130Te. The detector is being constructed at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, Italy, where it will start taking data in 2015. If the target background of 0.01 counts/(keV·kg·y) will be reached, in five years of data taking CUORE will have a half life sensitivity of ∼ 1026 y. CUORE-0 is a smaller experiment constructed to test and demonstrate the performances expected for CUORE. The detector is a single tower of 52 CUORE-like bolometers that started taking data in spring 2013. The status and perspectives of the CUORE and CUORE-0 experiments will be presented