The increasing involvement of state-affiliated investors in professional sports has intensified concerns about “sportswashing,” defined as the strategic use of sports to enhance reputation and deflect criticism. Drawing on Friedrich A. Hayek’s theory of dispersed knowledge and markets as discovery processes, our paper interprets sports markets as systems in which prices, performance and reputation serve as informational signals. We argue that state-backed investments distort these signals by introducing capital decoupled from profit-and-loss constraints. This weakens the informational function of markets, leading to inefficiencies such as wage inflation, talent misallocation and reduced competitive discipline. By insulating actors from failure, we also argue that sportswashing undermines competition as a discovery mechanism. From a Hayekian perspective, such interventions impair market coordination and the spontaneous order of the catallaxy, highlighting the need for rule-based institutional safeguards.

In this paper, we examine the transferability of the theory of the first-mover advantage to national sports associations in individual sports for the first time. The conceptual analysis examines the replicability through a comparative analysis, a theoretical modeling, and a case logic across three approaches. The comparative analysis detects a fundamental possibility of transferring the first-mover advantage, considering macroeconomic control variables and a specific athlete assignment process to reflect structural differences between business organizations and national individual sports associations. While the theoretical modeling demonstrates that the individual first-mover advantage components can generally be transferred to national individual sports associations, the case logic simulates how plausible first-mover effects could occur in individual sports and reveals highly relevant effects to the reality of national individual sports associations. The findings serve as an important basis for future studies to explore a potential first-mover effect in individual sports and derive success-focused implications for action.

Macht, Markt und Krieg im Wandel Private Militärunternehmen prägen heutige Konflikte - doch welche Gefahren resultieren aus ihrem Einsatz? Dieses Buch analysiert aus ökonomischer Sicht die Grundprobleme, die die Verpflichtung privater Militärdienstleister mit sich bringt. Hierzu beleuchtet es Risiken wie Moral Hazard, externe Effekte sowie Verschiebungen in der Machttektonik anhand von Fallstudien. Eine fundierte Analyse für alle, die moderne Sicherheitspolitik verstehen wollen. Das Buch richtet sich an Studium, Forschung und Praxis in den Bereichen Wirtschafts- und Politikwissenschaften sowie Internationale Beziehungen und Friedens- und Konfliktforschung.

This article provides a literature review based on the PRISMA approach from the research field of social inequality in youth sports participation. Out of 4098 references, we ultimately included 37 studies in the analysis after the selection process and categorized them into four groups. The key reasons research consistently identifies for differences in sports participation are the importance of socioeconomic status, educational level, and access to the various forms of capital described by Bourdieu. However, the findings of our review also highlight that there are still gaps in knowledge within the research field, as existing studies often have limited explanatory power, and some approaches have not yet been considered at all or only superficially.

In this paper we identify the presumed positive effect of home games on social media activity and compared this effect before and during lockdown. This question has to be placed in the context of the sociological and leisure science discourse on soccer fans, which among others, is particularly concerned with the topic of identity and community. While most sociological approaches to explaining the social phenomenon of fandom model the behavior of individuals more or less as a reaction to external – such as social or class-specific – circumstances, in this study we employ identity theory and the social identity approach – theoretical approaches based on methodological individualism. To reach our goal, we gathered data from social media platforms over 19 months, from 460 to 562 first-division soccer clubs nested in 32–34 soccer leagues from four different continents. Data was collected on daily social media activity from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. Results showed no significant difference in social activity during the lockdown phase, with and without spectators, however, before the lockdown phase, home games led to higher social media activity. These results have important implications for interactive communication with sports fans which have been neglected by sports clubs. This negligence has resulted in diminishing sports fans’ activities on social media, while their team is playing at home, but without their physical presence in the stadiums. It shows that sports clubs need to focus on business communication via social networking platforms. In this respect, our study contributes significantly to a better understanding of the relationship between the location of a soccer match, i.e. home or away games and traffic on social media. In this way, it significantly expands the insights of sociological and leisure science discourse on soccer fans.

This article analyses whether professional soccer clubs are more successful in sporting terms the greater the human capital of their players. Using the Transfer-markt.de values as a proxy for human capital and the final table positions, as well as the points scored, as a proxy for sporting success, we show for the German 1st and 2nd Bundesliga with the help of a random-intersect model that those clubs achieve greater sporting success that have a higher human capital value. In addition, an analysis of the human capital allocated to the player positions based on the LASSO method shows that investment in human capital in the goal and mid-field positions in the 1st Bundesliga and in defence in the 2nd Bundesliga has the strongest impact on sporting success. Thus, this study makes an important contribution to identifying the success factors of professional soccer clubs.

The migration of professional athletes increased in volume and composition in the recent decades. We use a rational choice model to explain migration in certain sports and test it by applying the Poisson pseudo maximum likelihood estimator and the negative binomial pseudo maximum likelihood estimator. We can show that diaspora significantly impel the migration of athletes, while the GDP per capita is a significant pulling factor for athletics, but not for tennis and figure skaters. Considering the differences between nation's success in international competition, we find evidence for positive selection for athletes. With this study, we notably contribute to migration economics in the field of sport by analyzing migration in the sports of athletics, tennis, and figure skating for the first time.

PurposeThe market for recreational diving certificates is characterized by a small number of global providers and standardized products. Understanding how market structure influences firm behavior and market outcomes is essential for evaluating competitiveness and potential policy interventions. This study examines the market for diving certificates through the lens of the Structure-Conduct-Performance (SCP) Paradigm. It seeks to understand the role of entry barriers and market concentration in shaping competition and performance in this niche market.MethodsThe analysis examines structural conditions and resulting market outcomes by using secondary data, industry characteristics and theoretical SCP reasoning. Special attention is given to network effects, proprietary training systems and certification standardization as sources of entry barriers.Results and ConclusionFindings indicate that competition is limited by substantial entry barriers, enabling the dominant provider, PADI, to maintain considerable market power. Despite this concentration, technical efficiency and training quality remain consistently high across providers. However, monopolistic pricing strategies lead to allocative and distributive inefficiencies. Because training quality is maintained and consumer preferences are diverse, direct regulatory intervention appears unnecessary.

States differ significantly in international sports competitions in how they use the resources they have and whether they do so in an efficient manner. In this paper, we investigate the efficiency of the nations from the so-called "Global South", in total 52 states, during the 2000-2024 Summer Olympics. By doing this, our paper is the first using the Bayesian stochastic frontier analysis for exploring the performance of the states of the Global South. We perform an age decomposition, which shows that the 25-29 and 30-34 age cohorts contribute the most to Olympic performance. Our findings also suggests that transient efficiencies are higher than persistent efficiencies in a majority of the analyzed nations. Our analysis represents an important contribution in analyzing developing states' efficiency in elite sports.

Die Behauptung der Fans, der Fußball gehöre ihnen, ist aus Sicht der Theorie der Verfügungsrechte unzutreffend; vielmehr gehört der Fußball den Veranstaltern.

Private military companies (PMC) can have considerable advantages for the customer on the one hand, but on the other hand can come with great dangers. Based on the theory of externalities, an attempt is made to illuminate this situation and to analyze the negative externalities associated with it. By using an instrumental case study method we can identify two potential negative technological externalities of hiring PMCs which should be internalized. These two are the violation of national law and international humanitarian law in the theater of operation, and the lack of control of the executive by the legislative branch in the exporting state. Based on this, we present and discuss options to eliminate these negative technological externalities. It can be shown that the preferable set of measures includes instruments to create transparency, and command-and-control regulations on the individual state’s level. While the second effect can easily be solved with domestic instruments, a supranational organization is needed to solve the first effect.

Zusammenfassung Der Markt für wissenschaftliche Publikationen befindet sich nicht zuletzt durch die fortschreitende Digitalisierung und die Außensteuerung der Wissenschaft seit einigen Jahren in einem Wandel. Es treten neue Anbieter wissenschaftlicher Zeitschriften in den Markt ein und etablierte Marktteilnehmer stellen ihre Geschäftsmodelle um. Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird das Phänomen sogenannter Predatory Journals anhand ökonomischer Gesichtspunkte diskutiert. Zudem wird aus ordnungsökonomischer Perspektive der Frage nachgegangen, inwiefern von diesen Marktteilnehmern möglicherweise Gefahren für die wissenschaftliche Gemeinschaft ausgehen, denen durch Marktinterventionen begegnet werden sollte. Die pauschal angenommene Schutzbedürftigkeit der Wissenschaftler, die in derartigen Zeitschriften publizieren, kann eine staatliche Intervention nicht rechtfertigen. Mit Blick auf die möglicherweise beeinträchtigte Informationsversorgung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft besteht freilich die Gefahr der Verbreitung ungesicherter Erkenntnisse, was indes kein wissenschaftsspezifisches Problem ist. Der Fokus einer Strategie im Umgang mit Predatory Journals sollte daher vielmehr auf einer entsprechenden Sensibilisierung der relevanten Akteure für mögliche Probleme liegen.

Greenflation or inflation for green energy transition in Europe becomes a structural problem of new scarcity and poverty, under Austrian Economics analysis. The current European public agenda on the Green Deal and its fiscal and monetary policies are closer to coercive central planning, against the markets, economic calculus, and Mises’ theorem. In this paper, attention is paid to the green financial bubble and the European greenflation paradox: in order to achieve greater future social welfare, due to a looming climate risk, present wellbeing and wealth is being reduced, causing a real and ongoing risk of social impoverishment (to promote the SGD 13 on climate action, it is violated by SGD 1–3 on poverty and hunger and 7–12 on affordable energy, economic growth, sustainable communities, and production). According to the European Union data, the relations are explained between green transition and public policies (emissions, tax, debt, credit boom, etc.), GDP variations (real–nominal), and the increase of inflation and poverty. As many emissions are reduced, there is a decrease of GDP (once deflated) and GDP per capita, evidencing social deflation, which in turn means more widespread poverty and a reduction of the middle-class. Also, there is a risk of a green-bubble, as in the Great Recession of 2008 (but this time supported by the European Union) and possible stagflation (close to the 1970s). To analyze this problem generated by mainstream economics (econometric and normative interventionism), this research offers theoretical and methodological frameworks of mainline economics (positive explanations based on principles and empirical illustrations for complex social phenomena), especially the Austrian Economics and the New-Institutional Schools (Law and Economics, Public Choice, and Comparative Constitutional Economics).

Science is critical and thrives on discourse. However, new challenges for science and academic freedom have arisen from an often-discussed cancel culture and an increasing demand for safe spaces, which are justified by their assumed protection against microaggressions. These phenomena can impede scientific progress and innovation by prohibiting certain thought processes and heterodox ideas that eventually result in new ideas, publications, statements, etc. In this paper, we use the approach of property rights ethics to shed light on these phenomena, especially in academia. First, we argue that microaggressions must be generally tolerated according to property rights ethics as the starting point for discussion. Then, we analyze cancel culture and safe spaces in academia. To this end, we distinguish between two basic cases in the educational system. We show that cancel culture and safe spaces seem justifiable in a private education system but have no place in public, tax-funded universities from the perspective of property ethics. Our essay contributes, on the one hand, to the economic analysis of science and, on the other hand, to the ethical study of new phenomena in modern societies.

We model a stochastic, demographic-based framework to examine how an empirically proven, so-called first mover advantage affects the long-term sporting success of states by considering, among other things, demographic developments and the accumulation of sport-related human capital. In order to clarify and formalize this advantage in a sports economics framework, we draw on the concept of the stochastic dominance. Since our model is dynamic, it allows us to show how the probability of success of a nation evolves and under which conditions the stochastic dominance reduces.

In der vorliegende Studie wird auf Grundlage von Bourdieus Kapitaltheorie empirisch mit Daten des SOEPs analysiert, welche Determinanten die Wahl der Sportart von Jugendlichen beeinflussen. Die Studie hebt sich von vorherigen in der Weise ab, dass keine binäre Aussage über favorisierte Sportarten untersucht, sondern die Wahl einer relevanten Alternative in das Modell aufgenommen wird. So werden die jeweils für Jungen und Mädchen populärsten Sportarten Fußball und Tanzen als Referenzkategorien in die Schätzungen miteinbezogen. Es zeigt sich, dass insbesondere das kulturelle Kapital sowohl der Jugendlichen selbst als auch der Eltern die Wahl der Sportart erheblich beeinflusst. Zudem verändert auch das ökonomische Kapital das Chancenverhältnis, eine andere Sportart als die Referenzsportart auszuüben, erheblich. Die Kovariaten werden dann in einem zweiten Schritt nicht allein aus Plausibilitätsgründen den Bourdieu’schen Kapitalarten zugeordnet, sondern diese Zuordnung wird mittels eines statistischen Verfahren, der multiplen Korrespondenzanalyse, unterstützt. Nach Korrespondenzanalyse erfolgt mit den neugewonnen Dimensionen eine weitere Schätzung des Einflusses der Kapitalarten auf die Wahl der Sportarten, wobei sich die Ergebnisse von der ersten Schätzung in der Form unterscheiden, dass dem sozialen Kapital nun eine wesentlich höhere Bedeutung bei der Wahl der Sportart zugeschrieben wird. Mithilfe der Zuordnung der Kovariate mittels dieses statistischen Verfahrens konnte demnach gezeigt werden, dass die isolierte Betrachtung der Kapitalarten zu unpräzisen Rückschlüssen führen kann. Dieser Beitrag liefert damit auch einen ersten Ansatz, Wechselwirkungen zwischen einzelnen Kovariaten und zwischen den Kapitalarten selbst aufzuzeigen.