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This paper examines the relationship between star power and box office revenues using box office data from nine countries and a continuous measure of star power based on the number of visits to a star's web page on IMDB, the most popular web site for movie-related information. The degree of star power is computed for the top star, top three stars, and the director for the films in our sample. The results indicate that replacing an average star with a top star would increase revenues by an average of $16,618,570, while replacing three average stars with three top stars would increase revenues by an average of $64,410,381.

Using prices obtained from shopbots, we test several hypotheses regarding the economics of information and optimal search. We find that price dispersion is positively (negatively) related to product price and the number of sellers in cross-sectional (time series) analysis. Price dispersion increases over time when the sample includes new entrants, but decreases in the absence of entry. Controlling for shipping charges and seller heterogeneity reduces, but does not eliminate, price dispersion. Finally, prices appear to be correlated across products and over time – low price sellers for one product (time period) generally charge low prices for all items (time periods).

This paper examines the impact of a strict product liability standard on the accident rate in the general aviation (GA) industry. Liability expenses increased by 775% between 1976 and 1986, reducing the sales of new GA aircraft by 90% and increasing the age of the GA fleet. Using both aggregate and model‐specific data, our results indicate that the increase in the age of the GA fleet increased the accident rate by 25%–35% during 1981–2000. In addition, the higher price of GA aircraft boosted sales of homebuilt planes, which have higher accident and fatality rates than GA aircraft. (JEL K13, L62, L15)

We examine the out-of-market gap – the time between the end of a film's theatrical run and its release on DVD – for a sample of U.S. films during 1988-2005. The average gap declined from 58.14 days in 1998 to 27.93 days in 2005; by 2005, 39% of the films were released on DVD prior to leaving the theaters. Probit and hazard models are estimated to explore the factors that influence a distributor's decision to release a film on DVD before it exits the theaters, and the timing of the release for films that appear on DVD after they leave the theaters.

This article examines the impact of an Academy Award nomination and award for best picture, best actor/actress, and best supporting actor/actress on a film's: 1. market share of theaters, 2. average revenue per screen, and 3. its probability of survival. The model is estimated using weekly box-office data for a matched sample of nominated and non-nominated films. The results indicate substantial financial benefits for a nomination and award for best picture and best actor/actress. The structure of rewards is consistent with that found in two-stage, single-elimination tournaments.

This paper tests the hypothesis that differential regulations reduced the rate of capital turnover in the electric utility industry, resulting in increased emissions of sulfur dioxide. Based on a sample of forty-four privately owned electric utilities operating over the period 1969-83, our results indicate that (i) regulation increased the age of capital by an average of 3.29 years (24.6%), (ii) increases in the age of capital have no statistically significant impact on emissions, and (iii) in the absence of regulation emissions would have increased by 3.79 tons per million kWhs (34.6%).

This study estimates rates of deterioration and depreciation for a sample of used privately owned single- and twin-engine aircraft over the period 1971-1991. The adoption of a strict liability standard in the 1970s lead to a 775% increase in liability expenses for the manufacturers of private planes between 1977 and 1985, resulting in sharp increases in the prices of new and used planes throughout the late 1970s and 1980s. This period of rapid price inflation coincides with a decrease in the depreciation rates for used single- and twin-engine aircraft after 1975. In addition, our results indicate that the rate of deterioration is positively related to the required cost of engine maintenance. These findings call into question the commonly invoked assumption that depreciation rates may be treated as exogenously determined constants, and lend support to the hypothesis that deterioration and depreciation rates respond systematically to key economic variables.

Capacity utilization (CU) is usually defined as the ratio of actual output to the output corresponding to (i) the minimum point on the SRATC curve, (ii) the point of tangency between the LRATC and SRATC curves. In practice, however, CU is often measured as the ratio of actual to the maximum potential output consistent with a given capital stock. This paper demonstrates how to estimate the theoretical measures of CU, and examines the correlation between the three measures of CU, and the McGraw-Hill estimates of CU, using data from a sample of US privately owned electric utilities for 1961-83.

This study estimates quality-adjusted price indexes for personal computers. Three separate hedonic models are estimated using data from 1,841 personal computers over the period 1984-1991. In addition to the traditional linear model, a nonlinear model is developed and estimated. The nonlinear model is parsimonious in parameters, allows time-varying attribute prices, and can be estimated using a pooled data set. The results indicate that nominal quality-adjusted prices of mail-order firms declined at an average annual rate of 24.62%; quality-adjusted prices of major manufacturers declined at a slower rate.