Associate Professor of Economics, University of Reading
I am an Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Economics at the University of Reading.
My research is, broadly speaking, on applied econometrics, with a particular focus on sport. I have published research investigating a range of economic phenomena using sports data; for example, discrimination and market efficiency. Many aspects of labour market functioning (workplace productivity, the impact of immigration and changes in regulatory oversight) and managerial decisions can, and have been investigated. Sport also enables classic economic issues to be analysed within the context of sport, for example the demand for attendance at sport, and strategic decisions made on the field. Data on sport has been extensively collected for decades, even centuries, enabling economic history analyses over long periods of time, and studies of important periods of change in sports.
I'm a Scorecasting Economist, working with my colleague Carl Singleton to forecast scorelines for football matches. It's a bit of fun, but it also is providing interesting research offshoots too.
I'm also affiliated with the Programme for Economic Modelling (EMoD) at the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School and the Research Program in Forecasting at George Washington University.
Why England's Premier League should bail out the lower leagues
Oct 05, 2020 13:28 pm UTC| Sports
Uncertainty is what makes sports entertaining. If you always knew who was going to win a match, that would be boring. In the 1960s, an economist called Walter Neale said that the New York Yankees prayer should be: Oh Lord,...
Football returns in empty stadiums – research shows home advantage disappears
May 20, 2020 15:54 pm UTC| Business
For millions of football fans, weve had nothing but repeats to watch to get our fix in recent months. But starting from May 16, elite European football kicks off, courtesy of the German Bundesliga. But there will be a few...
Apr 13, 2020 15:26 pm UTC| Sports
This is going to be a difficult argument to win but as sports economists, we are going to try to convince you that footballers are in the right. Though the season has been suspended, footballers themselves are back in...
Bury FC: the economics of an English football club's collapse
Sep 02, 2019 23:23 pm UTC| Insights & Views Sports
Bury Football Club has been expelled from the English Football League after 125 years of membership due to unpaid debts. This is a seismic event in football history. It is the first time a club has been expelled from the...