We examine whether the three-point rule-the increase in rewards for a win from two to three points that the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) adopted in 1995-makes Bundesliga games become more exciting. Using regression discontinuity design as the empirical strategy, we do not find evidence that the threepoint rule makes games more decisive, increases the number of goals, or decreases goal differences. We only find some evidence that the three-point rule increases the second-half goals of losing first-half teams. Overall, our results suggest that, in the case of Bundesliga games, the three-point rule does not work as FIFA intended.

Purpose The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have been devastating to countries around the world. Much of the problem has been the need to contain the infection via harsh social movement restrictions while having the necessary policies to cushion the ensuing economic blows that follow them. This study aims to look at The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries and assess the good practices that are associated with those which performed relatively better than the rest. Design/methodology/approach The authors use data envelopment analysis (DEA) to identify the most efficient country among the ASEAN nations in dealing with the pandemic and observe their practices with regard to the movement control metrics. Findings One particular country stood out in this regard, which is Singapore. The authors observed that its social restrictions were less stringent than many others yet its management of the pandemic has been highly successful despite having had the highest number of cases at one stage in 2020. This suggests massive lockdowns may not necessarily be the solution. However, the nation did place a high priority in having a high-income support, effective public campaigning and very restrictive policy on public events. In terms of originality and value, this paper uses DEA in identifying the best practice among ASEAN countries in dealing with the pandemic, both from an economic and medical perspectives. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no other papers have used this approach. The authors hope the findings can be of some value to policymakers in designing better (public) policies when it comes to dealing with pandemics in the future.

The efficient market hypothesis (EMH) in the weak-form requires that there is no serial correlation between the returns at different times and successive price changes. On the contrary, stock returns displaying statistically significant autocorrelation between observations widely separated in time, or long memory, would weaken the properties derived from martingale models for pricing derivatives and other financial assets. Using spectral regression method, the fractional differencing parameter is estimated using 522 trading days (2 years post-UK general election day) in the London Stock Exchange (LSE). Evidence suggests that, regardless of the political party forming the government and consistent with findings for major capital markets, there is no evidence to suggest that the market is inefficient in the weak form of the efficient market hypothesis.

This paper investigates the relationship between national identification and social welfare. Society is a direct democracy where representative rich and poor agents vote on their most preferred tax rate. Utilizing the economics of identity, agent utility not only depends on income but also on social identification. We show that national identification increases agent utility and social welfare when the rich implements the most preferred tax rate of the poor, who is also the median voter. Furthermore, using respondent level of happiness as a proxy for social welfare, we show that national pride has a positive impact on welfare through logit regression analysis.

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