Pedro Garcia-del-Barrio

Identification of Segments of Soccer Clubs in the Spanish League First Division With a Latent Class Model

This article identifies different groups in a cost function framework of soccer clubs in the Spanish Football League First Division. In particular, we have clustered the sample— comprising data for seasons 1994/1995 to 2004/2005—into three groups. To do so, we have implemented a stochastic frontier latent class model, a procedure that also permits us to analyze the efficiency of the clubs with respect to their own frontiers. The results reveal that some of the clubs could improve their efficiency levels substantially.

Analysing the technical efficiency of the Spanish Football League First Division with a random frontier model

This article analyses technical efficiency of football clubs in the Spanish Football League Division 1 (Primera Liga) from the seasons 1995–1996 to 2004–2005 with an unbalanced panel data. The random frontier model is used, allowing the identification of random variables in the cost frontier. It is concluded that the price of capital investment, the number of points won and attendance are heterogeneous variables. Therefore, no common public policy aiming to improve efficiency can embrace all of the clubs, so that policies by clusters are required.

New revelations about unemployment persistence in Spain: time-series and panel data approaches using regional data

This article aims to re-examine the persistence of unemployment in Spain. For this purpose, we use time-series and cross-section analysis. From a time-series viewpoint we disaggregate unemployment by regions, and use unit root tests, AR coefficients and fractional differencing parameters as indicators of persistence. For the cross-section approach, we first estimate mean regressions of regional unemployment rates. Then, using a panel of 114 periods and 50 provinces, we estimate pooled, fixed and random effects models. Finally, following some recent developments, we implement several panel data unit root tests. Previous studies had already shown the strong persistence of Spanish unemployment. Our disaggregated analysis extends the finding to reveal that the persistence is greater in the most industrialized regions. The results also suggest that a structural break took place in 1994, implying a decline in the unemployment persistence since then.

Do movie contents influence box-office revenues?

ABSTRACT This article studies the determinants of box-office revenues in the motion picture industry. We first adopt an approach that takes into account quality signals (e.g. talent concentration, movie budget and Oscar awards, among others) to analyse the empirical relationship between category-specific parenthood ratings (R-ratings) and box-office revenues. Then, by matching movie contents with economic performance records, our original approach reveals that offensive contents like profanity or nudity may be a hindrance to achieve economic returns, while violent contents seems to enhance box-office revenues. Further research is needed to clarify the interaction in this regard between production budget and movie contents.

Sport Talent, Media Value and Equal Prize Policies in Tennis

Given the economic and commercial implications of sports, the media value of players and teams is considered a major asset in professional sports businesses. This paper aims to assess the economic value of intangible assets in the tennis industry. In order to rank the media value of professional tennis players (both men and women), we measure the intangible talent of players based on their exposure in the mass media. We use the ESI (Economics, Sports and Intangibles) methodology to examine some issues related to the competitive structure of tennis. Then, we explore whether policies regarding prize money could be more efficiently designed to account for the economic contribution of the players. The paper uses weekly data on the media presence and popularity of 1,400 professional tennis players (700 women and 700 men competing in 2007, espectively, in the WTA and ATP).

Reply to Comment on ‘‘Identification of Segments of Soccer Clubs in the Spanish League First Division with a Latent Class Model’’

This note responds to a comment by Lee (2009) and clarifies certain results in Barros, del Corral and Garcı́a-del-Barrio (2008), hereinafter referred to as BCG. From our point of view, Prof. Lee’s comment makes several unfounded criticisms to BCG. Anyway, the observations made by Prof. Lee deal with several questions of relevance in sports efficiency and productivity literature. Besides, the way in which latent class models could be relevant to this area of research is also illustrated. Lastly, his comment highlights problems of (a) specification errors; (b) small sample problem, and (c) misinterpretation of the estimates because in the words of Prof. Lee ‘‘their interpretation of the estimates does not consider the advantage of translog function.’’ We demonstrate that Prof. Lee is wrong in the interpretation of the estimates. The first area of concern for Lee (2009) is about specification errors. Lee (2009) pointed out several criticisms: the price of labor used in BCG is inadequate, the estimates of BCG are not legitimate for a cost function, and lastly BCG did not take into account the peculiar characteristics of a sports team production. With regard to the inappropriate use of the labor price, Prof. Lee cited several articles that have adopted alternative specifications. However, the articles that he cited (i.e., Frick & Simmons, 2008; Haas, 2003; Kahane, 2005) use the primal approach (i.e., production function) instead of the dual one (i.e., cost function) that we used. Thus, these articles are not strictly comparable to that of ours. However, to estimate cost functions input prices