Time on Camera: An Alternative Explanation of NASCAR Tournaments

NASCAR’s reward structure for rank order tournaments has been considered the exception to the rule in tournament theory due to the linear payout structure. We suggest that the rewards for drivers are nonlinear when you take into consideration the value of sponsorship time on camera and sponsor mentions during a race on TV. Given the importance of corporate sponsorship in NASCAR, we suggest that performance in a race provides additional benefits that are not captured in traditional tournament payments. Key Words:

Influences on Sponsorship Deals in NASCAR: Indirect Evidence from Time on Camera

Corporate sponsorship plays an important role in the entertainment business. The question becomes: what influences the value of a sponsorship contract? Empirical analysis of this question is relatively limited because of a lack of complete data on contract values. This is especially true in NASCAR where sponsorship values are generally not released to the public. We analyze a proportional proxy for driver sponsorship value: the value of time on camera. We find that the value of time on camera is influenced by driver performance but also by their experience and, in the case of two drivers, their family name-brand capital. The results confirm that sponsorship value in NASCAR is not only determined by what a driver has done most recently but, to some extent, what their fathers had done before them. Key Words: Sports, Sponsorship, NASCAR, Naming Rights, Return on Investment, Advertising

The incentives leading up to the 2008 financial crisis

There are many events that led up to the financial crisis of 2008. This study looks at the political policies in place before the crisis happened. Focusing on the decade and a half prior to the crisis, the incentives in the financial industry led to risk mitigation. This response to mitigate risk explains, at least in part, a reason why there was a boom in the Collateralised Debt Obligations (CDO) and Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) markets in the years leading up to the crisis.moral hazards; financial crises; employee incentives; financial policies; political policies; politics; risk mitigation; CDOs; collateralised debt obligations; collateralisation; MBSs; mortgage-backed securities; mortgages; securitisation; securities markets; USA; United States; housing; globalisation; trade; global markets.

Could affirmative action be efficient in higher education?

Many states are outlawing the use of affirmative action, which has lead to the use of inefficient measures as a substitute. I show that schools still use affirmative action in the application process because of a down-stream demand from employers.

Yellow Cards: Do They Matter?

Using data from the Bundesliga, the top German football league (American soccer), we analyze the effects of yellow and red cards on the probability of victory for a team. For the team receiving the cards, we find that yellow and red cards decrease the probability of victory. However, the number of fouls called increases the probability of victory for that team. We therefore find that aggressive play is valuable, but pushing too hard is detrimental. We also find that the probability change is different for the home and away teams.

Incentives on the Starting Grid in Formula One Racing

https://kent-islandora.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/node/9968/8860-thumbnail.jpgStarting a race in first place, pole position, is the goal of every race driver. This is even more pronounced in Formula One (F1) racing as the road courses they race are more difficult to pass on, providing an additional advantage to starting on the pole. However, their unique standing starts also create a bottleneck at the first turn, which often leads to contact between cars. Because F1 cars are not designed to make contact, this contact can greatly impact a driver’s position on the track. We find that there are certain positions on the starting grid that are more likely to make contact with other drivers than other positions. Specifically the starting position with the highest odds to make contact at the first turn is position 10. This creates the incentive for drivers to avoid this position, which means if they are unable to qualify higher than this position, the incentive exists for drivers to intentionally adjust their behavior to avoid these high-risk (of making contact) positions.</p

Productivity in Baseball: How Babe Ruth Beats the Benchmark

/sites/default/files/journals/4/articles/189/submission/thumbnail.jpgMany statistics are used to measure the productivity of hitters in Major League Baseball, such as the number of home runs and the number of runs batted in a season. However, comparing the talent of individual players across time is difficult as rules and technologies change. In this paper, we propose applying a practice commonly utilized in the finance literature to compare the performance of individual stocks and other assets, namely, we “benchmark” the productivity of each player’s performance to players in the same time period. Applying our benchmarking strategy to annual Major League Baseball data from 1871-2010, we find that Babe Ruth is the greatest hitter of all time.</p