Guest editors' introduction.

Dietl, Helmut ; Franck, Egon

Abstract

This special sssue contains five papers from the 7th European Sport Economics Association (ESEA) Conference on Sports Economics. This conference was hosted by the Center for Research in Sports Administration (CRSA; http://www.crsa.uzh.ch) August 27-28, 2015, at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. On the day prior to the conference, the CRSA organized a PhD course in sport economics. Paul Madden (University of Manchester) held an introductory lecture on theoretical sport economics before Brad Humphreys (West Virginia University) explained various methods for dealing with zeros in empirical data. The former and the current editors of this journal, Rob Simmons (Lancaster University) and Arne Feddersen (University of Southern Denmark), led a roundtable discussion on effective publishing strategies in sport economics. The PhD course was very successful with more than 25 graduate students participating.

On August 27, 2015, the CRSA chairman, Helmut Dietl (University of Zurich), welcomed the 120 participants from all over the world in his opening speech before handing over the speaker's desk to Humphreys for the keynote lecture on "The Future of Behavioral Economics in Sports Economics Research." The conference served as a platform for researchers from Europe, Asia, and the Americas to present their current work in sport economics. In total, more than 70 presentations were held in 22 different sessions, ranging from theoretical sport economics, such as regulation and league design, to econometrical analyses, such as betting, corruption, sport socio-economics, finance, and insolvency.

In the evening the organizers invited the participants to visit the FIFA headquarters. The participants had the opportunity to ask pressing questions to Alexander Koch, FIFA's Deputy Head of Corporate Communications, after he had given a short presentation about FIFA. Participants also received a guided tour through the impressive building, including the executive boardroom and the religion-neutral meditation room. The conference, which was perfectly organized by the managing director of the CRSA, Anil Ozdemir, and partly supported by the City and Canton of Zurich, MySwitzerland, Zurich Tourism, SWISS, and the Blizzard, ended with a panel discussion on August 28, 2015. The panel on "The Crucial Interplay between Sports, the Economy, and the Media" was chaired by CRSA board member Gabriele Siegert (University of Zurich) and consisted of panel members Dietl, Hippolyt Kempf (Swiss Federal Office for Sports), Castulus Kolo (Macromedia University of Applied Sciences), and Elmar Wagner (Neue Zrcher Zeitung).

In the following paragraphs we give a short overview of the five papers in this special issue. The first paper, "Sports and Local Growth in Sweden: Is a Sports Team Good for Local Economic Growth?," was written by Emelie Varja (rebro University). Varja received the Best Young Research Paper Award for this paper at the 7th ESEA Conference. Based on Swedish data, Vrja shows in her paper that professional sports teams do not increase the tax base of their municipalities.

In the second paper, "The Effect of Gender Equality on International Soccer Performance," Julia Bredtmann (RWI and IZA), Carsten J. Crede (University of East Anglia), and Sebastian Otten (RWI and University College London) use an innovative estimation strategy to identify the effect of gender equality on the performance of female national soccer teams in international competitions and show that the effect of gender equality on international soccer performance differs largely between male and female teams. Gender differences in labor force participation and life expectancies determine the international soccer performance of female teams, but cannot explain the success of male teams.

The third paper, "The Monetary Value of Voluntary Coaching: An Output-Based Approach," was authored by Johannes Orlowski and Pamela Wicker (both from the German Sport University Cologne). Their paper estimates the monetary value of voluntary coaching in German non-profit sports clubs. Based on the contingent valuation method, the authors estimate that the monetary value of one hour of voluntary coaching ranges from slightly more than 17 Euros up to more than 67 Euros.

Jaume Garcia (University Pompeu Fabra), Cristina Muiz, Placido Rodriguez, and Mara Jos Surez (all from the University of Oviedo) authored the fourth paper, "Comparative Analysis of Sports Practice by Types of Activities." Based on data from the Spanish Time Use Survey, the authors study the frequency of sports participation for individual versus group sports, indoor versus outdoor sports, and sports that require the use of facilities versus those that do not require them. The results show that gender is the most significant variable; in Spain, sports participation is predominantly by males.

In the fifth paper, "Testing the Testers: Do More Tests Deter Athletes from Doping?," Claire Baudouin (University of Oxford) and Stefan Szymanski (University of Michigan) analyze whether increasing the frequency of doping tests deters athletes from cheating. Based on the share of Olympic medals and the number of doping tests within each country, the authors conclude that increasing the number of doping tests decreases the probability of doping in some sports (e.g., track and field, wrestling) but not in others (e.g., cycling).

We hope that these five papers give you a glimpse of the great work presented at the 7th ESEA Conference and that you enjoy reading this special issue!

Helmut Dietl (1) and Egon Franck (1)

(1) University of Zurich, Switzerland