College Athletes and NCAA Violations

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/94513/1/capp850.pd

COLLECTIVE REPUTATION AND QUALITY

Firms who sell a regional or specialty product often share a common or collective reputation, which is based on the group's aggregate quality. The dynamic problem of collective reputation is similar to the natural resource extraction problems. Therefore, for the analysis of this particular problem, we use differential games. If there is unrestricted access to a common property resource (the reputation stock), agents perceive its shadow value to be zero and extract too rapidly; i.e, they all "cheat" on quality, "milking" the rents generated by the existence of the resource (reputation stock). We show that when there exists a collective product reputation without firm traceability, the firms will extract too much from the stock of reputation. A firm is said to "extract" reputation from the reputation stock when it sells low-quality products at high prices given by the high past levels of quality. The firm builds on the group's reputation when it provides a product with a quality level which is higher than the expected level of quality. The results from this work support minimum quality standards for producer groups and regional and specialty products. This is in contrast to the findings of previous work. Finally, the implications of these results are discussed as they relate to the case study of Washington apples. We present the case of Washington apples in light of the results of the analytical model.Agribusiness,

AN OPTION VALUE APPROACH TO VALUING PRESERVATION PROPERTIES

There has been a recent trend towards purchasing land for farmland preservation, wildlife refuges, other conservation, and cultural and historical preservation. There is a great deal of unexplained variation in the dollars paid per acre for these properties. The theoretical basis for this analysis is an option value model with stochastic returns to development. The data used in our analysis is sales transactions data for natural resource conservation and farmland preservation purposes from throughout the United States. We find that land, when it would be best used for development, but is not developed, has a significantly higher price.Land Economics/Use,

SEASONAL OLIGOPOLY POWER IN THE D'ANJOU PEAR INDUSTRY

We estimate seasonal oligopoly power at a disaggregated variety level in the D'Anjou pear market. Our data spans 1993 to 2000, during which time imported pears became more prevalent in the U.S. market. The range of monthly industry-conduct-parameter magnitudes is 0.034 to 0.195 and is most pronounced when the fresh D'Anjou pear crop first becomes available in the earliest months of the marketing year. Possible reasons for timing of oligopoly power relate to the growth of imported pears during the latter portion of marketing year. In addition, oligopoly power may diminish during the marketing year as pears in storage decline in quality.Crop Production/Industries,

Further Examination of Potential Discrimination Among MLB Umpires

We address potential racial bias by Major League Baseball umpires with respect to ball-strike calls. We offer a number of econometric specifications to test the robustness of the results, adding the role of implicit and explicit monitoring as well as pitch location. Our analysis shows mixed results regarding the matching of umpire and pitcher race. We conclude that evidence of own race bias is sensitive to specification and methodology. How results can differ based on different data sets, specifications, time periods and race classifications are discussed

Further Examination of Potential Discrimination Among MLB Umpires

We address potential racial bias by Major League Baseball umpires with respect to ball-strike calls. We offer a number of econometric specifications to test the robustness of the results, adding the role of implicit and explicit monitoring as well as pitch location. Our analysis shows mixed results regarding the matching of umpire and pitcher race. We conclude that evidence of own race bias is sensitive to specification and methodology. How results can differ based on different data sets, specifications, time periods and race classifications are discussed

Development of structural correlations and synchronization from adaptive rewiring in networks of Kuramoto oscillators

L.P. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program. J.K. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program and NIH T32-EB020087, PD: Felix W. Wehrli. D.S.B. also acknowledges support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the National Science Foundation (BCS-1441502, CAREER PHY-1554488, BCS-1631550, and CNS-1626008). We also thank two anonymous reviewers whose comments greatly improved the quality of this work. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of any of the funding agencies.Peer reviewedPublisher PD