Andrew J. Cooke

Attendance at County Cricket An Economic Analysis

In this article, we use attendance data from the two main domestic cricket leagues in England and Wales to estimate the impact of a series of recent structural changes. We find that changes to the organization of cricket in England have had major impacts on attendance. Attendance is significantly higher when an international match is not scheduled at the same time, when the game is played in the evening under floodlights, and when the game is played at a “minor” or festival ground. Festival matches are estimated to increase average attendance at County Championship matches by over 1,400 and at National League matches by nearly 400. This finding provides strong evidence in support for of a move toward greater use of festival grounds around the counties. We also find evidence that the presence of players centrally contracted to the national side significantly boosts attendance, particularly at one-day games.

Markets and Market Failure

The previous chapter analysed the concepts of demand and supply as separate entities. The discussion that follows links the two explicitly. After all, a householder’s demand will not be realised if no one is willing and able to supply the desired commodity, and similarly a firm will not wish to produce a commodity unless there is some indication that there is a demand for it. When buyers and sellers are able to communicate their willingness and ability to demand or supply a good or service to each other, a market is formed.

Merger activity in the waste disposal industry: the impact and the implications of the Environmental Protection Act

Over the last two and a half decades, the UKs waste disposal industry has evolved from a disparate collection of localized small-scale operators to a coherent multimillion pound industry. With particular reference to the 1990 Environmental Protection Act, this paper uses multinomial logit analysis to estimate the degree to which increased regulation of the industry has led to a rise in merger activity within the sector. It is shown that the Act did increase the probability of a waste disposal firm being associated with merger activity, either as an acquiring firm or as a target for other firms. As a result, intra-industry consolidation took place alongside attempts by non-waste disposal firms to diversify their interests within a buoyant sector which was avoiding the recessionary downturn affecting other sectors of the British economy.

Have Lower Real Wages Helped Industrial Restructuring in Romania

A reduction in real wages arising from price liberalisation has been a standard feature of economies undergoing industrial restructuring. In this article, the impact of real wages on industrial performance is examined using a panel dataset of Romanian industries from 1990-96. Using both static and dynamic panel estimation, real wages are found not to be negatively associated with either output or employment. These results are consistent with a view that an institutionalist approach, aimed at improving productivity, may be more likely to achieve the long-term objective of successful industrial restructuring than standard adjustment programmes based on neo-classical theory.

Guilty by Association? The Case of The Karin B Scare

The waste disposal industry is susceptible to bad publicity owing to the nature of the products it is sometimes required to process. At particular risk are companies which treat and dispose of hazardous substances. In this paper we test whether media concerns about public safety arising from the international transfer of hazardous wastes can have a negative impact on the stockmarket valuation of firms and of the waste disposal industry as a whole, even when the affected companies have not themselves broken the law.

Deriving leisure time values for visitors to urban sports centres

Since the mid 1960s, the demand for recreational resources has been increasingly subjected to the rigours of economic evaluation. In the case of travel cost studies, an important variable is the amount of leisure time visitors incur when journeying to a site. The aim of this paper is to show empirically that the value of the travel time incurred by individuals consuming localized recreation activity, for example at a sports centre, can be much lower than many commentators assume. If exaggerated time values are used as extra-sample information for evaluations of urban facilities, not only may the effectiveness of particular pricing policies be compromised but also the user benefits estimated for such facilities may be overstated.

The Organisation of Firms

With the specific aim of gaining an insight into the characteristics that distinguish the construction industry from other productive sectors of the economy, this chapter identifies some of the factors that determine how firms behave within markets. Much of the analysis falls under the general heading of ‘industrial economics’. Not surprisingly this branch of economics continues to be a vibrant focus of research, and not surprisingly for economists(!) it can result in considerable disagreement. At one extreme is the view that firms that are able to exploit favourable market conditions will do so to the detriment of the consumer, necessitating piecemeal government intervention. This view is embodied in what economists refer to as the structure-conduct-performance (SCP) approach. Although this framework is now seen by some economists as somewhat limited, since it tends to imply a simple causal relationship between the structure of an industry and the way in which firms respond to it, the approach continues to provide the blueprint for investigations by the British Monopolies and Mergers Commission.

The Construction Industry and Macroeconomic Policy, 1945???95

This final chapter analyses the interface between the construction industry and the macroeconomic policies that have been pursued by successive postwar governments. Drawing on the theory outlined in the previous chapter, the discussion focuses initially on the emergence of Keynesian economics, which underpinned the macroeconomic thinking of the two main political parties until the 1970s. It will be seen that during much of this period the construction industry adopted a somewhat complacent attitude, prompted by the ‘easy profits’ of postwar prosperity and public expenditure growth. However the macroeconomic instability that arose from the late 1960s gradually required construction firms to become not only more cost conscious but also to pay greater attention to the characteristics of the product they were supplying to clients and the wider environmental implications of building activity.

Demand and Supply

This chapter introduces its readers to two terms that are fundamental to microeconomic analysis: demand and supply. They refer to the willingness and ability of householders, firms, local authorities, the government or any other economic agent to buy (in the case of demand) or sell (in the case of supply) goods and services over a predefined period of time. In stressing willingness and ability, we are emphasising two points. First, a decision to demand or supply a particular commodity is made in the absence of coercion. Second, when economists refer to demand or supply, they are interested in real quantities rather than aspirations that may or may not be fulfilled. This is not an unreasonable stance to take. For example, firms cannot afford to be interested in what consumers would like to buy if they had the means (for example a six-bedroom house with a swimming pool and adjoining squash and tennis courts), but what they are able to buy with the resources at their disposal. Similarly, in the case of supply, analysis should focus on what goods and services firms are capable of producing rather than what they would prefer to supply to a market in an ideal world.

Introduction to Macroeconomics

The remainder of this book is devoted to macroeconomic issues in recognition of the fact that the behaviour exhibited by firms, regardless of their industry, reflects the characteristics of the economy within which they operate and the measures taken by the government in response to any fluctuations in the performance of that economy. This and the following chapter are policy-oriented. Chapter 7 is a facilitating chapter that identifies some of the key principles that underpin macroeconomic analysis and the relationships that exist between different macroeconomic variables. Based upon this foundation, Chapter 8 focuses explicitly on how changes in postwar government policy have affected the construction industry. It will be seen that the postwar era can be divided into two discrete periods. The first, 1945 to the mid-1970s, was a period when governments were prepared to intervene actively in their economies in order to rectify shortfalls in employment (and hence economic activity), which was deemed to be economically and politically unacceptable. The second period, which takes us to the present day, reflects a changed political and economic philosophy that has resulted in the government attempting to reduce the role of the state in the economy and correct the underlying structural deficiencies that characterise the British economy.