No this is not a piece on World War 2 or any other war for that matter,although it is often said that football is war. The Battle of Santiago is the name given to a particularly infamous football match during the 1962 FIFA World Cup. It was a game played between host Chile and Italy […]
A guest post by Ro Edge, New Zealand Spokesperson, Save Women’s Sport Australasia (SWSA): The decision by the International Olympic Committee to restore the core purpose of women’s sport: providing biological females with a fair and safe arena to compete, is long-overdue. For years, many sporting bodies adopted the IOC’s earlier open-door policy, leading to…
After Claudia Goldin became the first woman to win a solo Nobel in economics in 2023, she received hundreds of invitations and requests. She accepted just three. One of them was advising the WNBA players union as the women prepared to negotiate a new labor deal with the league. When Goldin replied via email to Terri Carmichael Jackson,…
One of the key insights of good tax policy is that people respond to incentives. If tax rates are punitive, people will do what they can to protect themselves from predatory government. Especially if they have any ability to control the timing, level, and composition of their income. Star athletes are definitely in this group. They avoid […]
Regular readers of this blog will know that I enjoy blogging about research that uses a sports setting to illustrate economic concepts (except when the research is terrible). Sport makes for an interesting setting for testing economic theories. The rules are known. The incentives are usually clear. The outcomes are usually unambiguous. Other real-world settings…
Eric Crampton writes: Legislation before Parliament bans greyhound racing over animal welfare considerations. Buying out the industry, shutting it down, and rehoming the dogs would seem right if you thought animal welfare warranted it. The legislation instead proposes shuttering Greyhound Racing New Zealand and an assortment of private racing clubs. Their net assets will be handed…
Oliver Hartwich writes – Let me state this clearly at the outset: I have never placed a bet on a greyhound. I have never owned a greyhound. If I were a dog, I would likely prefer a soft sofa to a hard track. I am not writing this because I have a passion for racing, […]
New Zealand will be banning greyhound racing. The Bill to formally end greyhound racing will be introduced to Parliament later this year. The public will be able to make submissions to the select committee as part of the process.“It is important people get the opportunity to have their say. The decision to end greyhound racing was…
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill to define the biological definition of man and woman in law. . . . “This is not about being anti-anyone or anti-anything. This is about ensuring we as a country focus on the facts of biology and protect the term ‘woman’ in law”, says New Zealand First Leader […]
World Athletics is supporting female sport: It sounds so simple that you wonder if there’s something you’ve misunderstood. In order to “doggedly protect the female category”, World Athletics President Sebastian Coe has announced that his organisation will become the first to introduce cheek swabs or dry blood tests to verify an athlete’s biological sex. These are […]
Economic impact studies are typically used to justify large sporting events. However, those studies typically apply a set of overly positive assumptions, leading to large overestimates of economic impact. Andrew Zimbalist even wrote a book about this problem, Circus Maximus (which I reviewed here).Now, it is rare for the authors of an economic impact study to go…
(This is my 29,994th post, so we’ll reach 30,000 by the end of the weekend. I don’t know what to think about that!) I think we all know now that most Americans, and a majority of individuals in both Democratic and Republican parties, oppose the participation of trans-identified males in women’s sports, presumably on the […]
The good news is that the Washington Post, defying the inevitable cries that the paper is “transphobic”, is calling for a “respectful debate on trans women in sports”. This is, of course, because of the increasing number of biological men who identify as women (I prefer that jawbreaker to “trans women” because the latter plays […]
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
In Hume’s spirit, I will attempt to serve as an ambassador from my world of economics, and help in “finding topics of conversation fit for the entertainment of rational creatures.”
“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. - J Robert Oppenheimer.
Recent Comments