This special issue examines the state of economic policy research in sport. This issue consists of 12 articles. The first five papers in this special issue examine policies aimed at increasing physical activities as well as examining the economic determinants of participation in physical...

The paper provides an ex post analysis of the financial burden and economic benefits of the World Cup (WC) in Germany 2006. Based on the usual cost-benefit measures, the experience of WC 2006 appears to be in line with existing empirical research on large sporting events and sports stadiums,...

We examine the impact of new sports facilities on new businesses, an unexplored topic in the literature. We use data from the Dun and Bradstreet MarketPlace files to examine how new sports facilities affect nearby business activity in terms of the number of new businesses and workers. We find no...

Governments still labour to form public/private partnerships to develop sports facilities that will retain teams while also creating benefits for communities. This work is undertaken as advocates point to a stream of possible benefits from a new sports facility, while detractors argue a sports...

This paper provides a methodological contribution by illustrating the use of computer vision and machine learning methods for the study of facial characteristics in economics. We analyze facial appearance premia for head football coaches at big-time college sports programs to illustrate this...

We investigate the effect of new facilities on attendance in professional baseball, basketball, and football from 1969 to 2001. We find a strong, persistent effect in baseball and basketball, and little effect in football. Size and duration estimates imply that baseball teams sell 2,500,794...

We analyze the relationship between professional sports events and concerts held in LA's Staples Center and nearby hotel performance. Government-led economic redevelopment projects often envision sports facilities as tourist magnets. Little evidence exists supporting links between sporting ...

U.S. cities have recently experienced a boom in new sports facility construction. Although these facilities can provide benefits to local residents, they may also generate negative externalities, making dwellings near a facility less desirable. Using a hedonic spatial difference-in-differences...

Prior evidence reveals a causal relationship between sporting events and crime. If sporting events increase crime, they also increase public spending on policing. We analyze the crime-police spending relationship using data from the Annual Survey of Public Employment & Payroll over the periods...

Using data from 56 professional sports facilities opened between 1995 and 2008, we find what at first appears to be a substantial neighborhood revitalization effect: the opening of a facility is associated with an increase in mortgage applications to purchase homes located in the neighborhood of...