This paper examines the potential for budget crowd-out in state highway financing. Highway projects are funded primarily through state earmarked tax revenues and federal highway grants. Theoretically, these two sources of revenues could crowd-out state general funds, freeing up these funds for other uses. Previous studies of highway funding show little evidence of significant crowd-out, providing support for the ''flypaper effect.'' The empirical model of this paper better controls for the endogeneity of federal highway grants and state earmarked highway revenues than previous studies and results suggest little to no crowd-out. Also, our study concludes that state budgeting decisions in the post-Intermodal Surface and Transporation Efficiency Act era still support the ''flypaper effect.''
This article analyzes the impact of playing fantasy sports on the television viewership of the National Football League and of Major League Baseball. Using survey data from the ESPN Sports Poll, this study found evidence suggesting that fantasy sports participation leads to an increase in the number of games watched on television and, therefore, acts as a complement to televised sporting events. The greater demand for televised sports should arguably increase the value of advertising spots and, therefore, lead to a greater potential for cross-marketing across the 2 media of television and the Internet.
Many explanations exist for the resurgence of the Major League Baseball (MLB) fan base following the 1994-1995 strike. The most prevalent explanations include the 1998 McGuire-Sosa homerun race and Cal Ripken Jr.’s consecutive games record. While such explanations certainly impacted fan interest in the sport, it is remiss to ignore the impact of online fantasy baseball leagues, which surfaced in 1997. This article examines the extent to which participating in a fantasy baseball league influences the MLB game attendance. The results strongly suggest that fantasy baseball participation positively influences MLB game attendance.
Previous studies have examined the relationships among different gambling industries (e.g., casinos, lotteries, and racetracks), with mixed results. Yet, the literature lacks evidence on the extent to which casinos in a particular market compete with each other. No study considers the proximity of competing casinos in its empirical analysis. This analysis uses quarterly casino property‐level revenue data from Missouri, 1997.1–2010.2, and a model with a distance‐adjusted competition scalar to analyze how competing casinos affect the revenues of a particular casino. The results indicate that machine games, table games, and square footage all have a positive effect on own‐casino revenues. Machine games and square footage have a negative impact on competing casinos; however, table games have a positive impact on competing casinos. These results are consistent with how the Missouri casino industry is developing, with more emphasis on machine games and less on table games. The results suggest that casinos are competitive in nature (i.e., are substitutes), as there is no evidence to suggest that there is any positive agglomeration effect from casinos being clustered. This analysis should be of interest to industry and policy makers, and provides a foundation for further research on the U.S. casino industry.
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