Join the Club - On the Attractiveness of Golf Club Membership

This paper concerns the attractiveness for member ship in Swedish golf clubs. A representative voter model is derived and the attractiveness for member ship in golf clubs estimated using a unique data set on qualities of the golf course, the quality of neighboring courses and characteristics regarding the region where the golf club is located. Characteristics and composition of population within the municipality where the club is located have a significant impact on the attractiveness of the club. The attractiveness increases as the share of number of junior members decrease. Golf is found to be a substitute to publicly financed goods. Keywords: spatial econometrics, sports, utility maximization JEL classification: D71, L83, R12

Retailer Choice and Loyalty Schemes - Evidence from Sweden

From economic theory, it is known that consumer loyalty schemes can have lock-in effects resulting in entry barriers and higher prices. This paper concerns consumer loyalty schemes where the main issue is to test the hypothesis that loyalty scheme membership affects the choice of food retailer. This choice is modeled as a random utility maximization problem estimated with maximum likelihood. Based on a data set covering 1,551 Swedish households, we find evidence supporting this hypothesis. Further, according to the results, store characteristics and geographical distance matter for the choice of retailer while household characteristics are not found to have a significant effect.Bonus card; Conditional logit; Consumer choice; Distance; Food retailer; Loyalty scheme

Golf courses and wetland fauna

Golf courses are often considered to be chemical-intensive ecosystems with negative impacts on fauna. Here we provide evidence that golf courses can contribute to the support and conservation of wetland fauna, i.e., amphibians and macroinvertebrates. Comparisons of amphibian occurrence, diversity of macroinvetebrates, and occurrence of species of conservation concern were made between permanent freshwater ponds surveyed on golf courses around Sweden's capital city, Stockholm, and off-course ponds in nature-protected areas and residential parklands. A total of 71 macroinvertebrate species were recorded in the field study, with no significant difference between golf course ponds and off-course ponds at the species, genus, or family levels. A within-group similarities test showed that golf course ponds have a more homogenous species composition than ponds in nature-protected areas and ponds in residential parkland. Within the macroinvertebrate group, a total of 11 species of odonates were identified, with no difference detected between the categories of ponds, nor any spatial autocorrelation. Significant differences were found between pond categories in the occurrence of five species of amphibians, although anuran occurrence did not differ between ponds. The great crested newt (Triturus cristatus) was significantly associated with golf course ponds, but the smooth newt (Triturus vulgaris) was not. We found no evidence of any correlation between pond size and occurrence of amphibians. Among the taxa of conservation concern included in the sample, all amphibians are nationally protected in Sweden, with the internationally threatened T. cristatus more frequently found in golf course ponds. Among macroinveterbrates of conservation status, the large white-faced darter dragonfly (Leucorrhinia pectoralis) was only detected in golf course ponds, and Tricholeiochiton fagesi (Trichoptera) was only found in one off-course pond. GIS results revealed that golf courses provide over a quarter of all available permanent, freshwater ponds in central greater Stockholm. We assert that golf courses have the potential to contribute to wetland fauna support, particularly in urban settings where they may significantly contribute to wetland creation. We propose a greater involvement of ecologists in the design of golf courses to further bolster this potential

Quality of Scottish democracy

The founders of Scottish devolution intended to create a ‘new politics’ that would be less adversarial than British politics. Some of their aspirations resonate with the basic themes of freedom, equality and democratic control in the quality of democracy literature dating back to the 1970s. Authors of this literature disagree on some aspects of what constitutes democratic quality, so a distinction can be made between minimalist and maximalist democratic conceptualisations. This chapter provides examples of both types of conceptualisation present before and after devolution, noting that more recent developments are pushing Scotland in the highly contested maximalist direction

Sunshine in Galway and the End of Classes

Postcard from Abby Lundberg, during the Linfield College Semester Abroad Program at the National University of Ireland, Galwa

Post-communism and the abandonment of mixed-member electoral systems

Many countries adopted mixed-member (MM) electoral systems in the 1990s, but several switched to list proportional representation (PR) recently. Most switchers are post-communist countries that used the semi-proportional mixed-member majoritarian (MMM) system, often associated with dominant parties. List PR was adopted under competitive conditions in some cases (Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Ukraine), while in places where authoritarian control remains (Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan), list PR appears to be used as a means of reducing competition and undermining multiparty democracy

Calibration Systems of the ATLAS Tile Calorimeter

TileCal is the hadronic calorimeter covering the most central region of the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. This sampling calorimeter uses iron plates as absorber and plastic scintillating tiles as the active material. A multi-faceted calibration system allows to monitor and equalize the calorimeter response at each stage of the signal production, from scintillation light to digitization. This calibration system is based on signal generation from different sources: a Cs radioactive source, laser light, charge injection and minimum bias events produced in proton-proton collisions. A brief description of the different TileCal calibration systems is given and the latest results on their performance in terms of calibration factors, linearity and stability are presented.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. For the 32nd Symposium on Physics in Collision, Strbske Pleso 12th - 15th September 201

Monetary Policy and Banking Supervision Functions on the Central Bank

This paper analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of maintaining the banking supervisory functions at the Banco Central do Brasil (BCB). First, these pros and cons are identified and listed using the economic literature, after a brief analysis of the ongoing debate and international experience regarding monetary policy, independence of the central bank and banking supervision. Then it is discussed the international tendencies as related to central bank reforms and the respective supervisory systems, including an annex panel of the experience of 40 different countries. The first and clearest tendency identified is to withdraw supervisory functions from the monetary authorities, normally seen as capable of strengthening the "central bank independence". The second trend - and one that seems to be gaining strength - is merger of the agencies charged with banking, securities and insurance supervision into a single agency, enhancing their capacity to perform the financial groups' consolidated supervision. There is no firm conclusion as the more effective institutional arrangement related to banking supervision under the control of the central bank or another institution.