Faculty Scholarship
Dr.
Gregory M. Dempster, Elliott Associate Professor of Economics, Dr. Jeremy T. Schwartz, Assistant Professor of Economics, Dr. Justin P. Isaacs, Associate Professor of Economics, Dr. Anthony M. Carilli, Professor of Economics
 THE TEAM OF Assistant Professor Jeremy T. Schwartz, Associate Professor Justin P. Isaacs ’95, and Professor Anthony M. Carilli, all of the Department of Economics, recently collaborated on two papers. “Part-Time Rewards: Differences in Game Length by Home-Plate Umpire Type in the Northern League,” which was published in the Virginia Economic Journal in 2006, used data from the 2000 Northern League season to conclude that the type of umpire working home plate significantly affects game length. Specifically, part-time umpires work longer games, consistent with a preference set that views the game as, in part, leisure.
The second paper, “To Race or to Place? An Empirical Investigation of the Efficiency of the NASCAR Points System,” which was published last March in the Journal of Sports Economics, classifies drivers as two types, skilled and unskilled, and the authors hypothesize that skilled drivers will be less aggressive than unskilled drivers since they are more productive, given the same effort. Accordingly, an unskilled driver must be more aggressive than a skilled one to gain more compensation. The collaborators find that drivers who demonstrate skill in earlier races are less likely to get into accidents in subsequent races, suggesting that there is a skill-level difference between drivers.
Joined by a former colleague, Christopher J. Coyne, the three wrote “Put Me in Coach, I’m Ready to Play,” accepted by The Review of Austrian Economics. The paper explores the connection between discrimination and entrepreneurship by studying the integration of black players in Major League Baseball. Baseball team owners, acting as entrepreneurs, had to weigh the benefits of integrating against the costs of alienating consumers who were opposed to the hiring of black players. The collaborators found that the owners whose teams could profit in contending for the league pennant with the addition of black players were the ones who were most willing to integrate, in contrast to revealed consumer preferences of the time. In addition to illuminating the mechanism through which integration took place, the paper offers a general understanding of how consumer preferences for discrimination can shift via entrepreneurial activities.
Schwartz collaborated with Ronald J. Baker II of Millersville University in “The Seat is Right: Bidder Heterogeneity in The Price Is Right,” forthcoming in the Journal of Socio-Economics. They explore the natural experiment from the game show The Price Is Right in which one bidder has an informational advantage and a strategic advantage over competitors. Using clustered logit regression analysis, they find further evidence in support of the bounded rationality hypothesis and that bidder heterogeneity, as demonstrated by the seat choice of the first contestant announced at the beginning of the show, leads to greater winning by bidders in the fourth position.
In addition to his work with Schwartz and
Carilli, Isaacs also completed a study of the role
of entrepreneurship and discrimination, which
appeared in the Review of Austrian Economics in November. And with another Department of
Economics colleague, Elliott Associate Professor
of Economics Gregory M. Dempster, Isaacs
wrote a paper, which is due to be published in
the Journal of Resource Economics, on the failure
of California’s re-regulation of the electricity
industry.
Isaacs has also produced three projects
for private industry with Elliott Professor of Economics Kenneth N. Townsend. They wrote “An Analysis of Wages for the Piedmont
Regional Jail”; and for the National Beer
Wholesalers Association, “The Role of the
Modern Beer Wholesaler in the 21st Century”
and “An Economic Impact Study of the Beer
Distributor.”
Isaacs is a founding member of the Center
for the Study of Political Economy at Hampden-Sydney College. The Center, which brings
speakers to campus to discuss policy issues in
the context of a free and open society, also funds
student research on policy-related issues. As
a founding member, and as the first director,
Isaacs was responsible for raising over $60,000
for the Center’s operations.
In August Dempster received word that he
had passed the Level III Certified Financial
Analyst examination and thus is qualifi ed to
apply for the designation of Chartered Financial
Analyst. The Economist magazine ranked the CFA Program as the gold standard among
investment analysis designations. Each of the
three levels of examination demands a minimum
of 250 hours of study with an emphasis on
principles that are relevant in every market.
Schwartz, who began his tenure at the
College in 2003, received his B.B.A. and M.S.
from Kent State University, and his M.A. and
Ph.D. from Indiana University.
Isaacs began teaching at the College in
1999 and was promoted to the rank of associate
professor in 2005. In addition to his bachelor’s
degree from Hampden-Sydney, he holds a Ph.D.
from Auburn University.
Carilli, who received his B.A. from Hartwick
College and M.A. and Ph.D. from Northeastern
University, has been at the college since 1991,
with his promotion to the rank of professor
coming in 2004. He received a John Brooks
Fuqua Award for Excellence in Teaching at
Commencement in 2006.
Dempster holds the B .S. and M.B.A. from
Louisiana State University and the Ph.D. from
Auburn University. He came to the College in
1998 and was promoted to his present rank in
2004.
BEYOND THE Classroom FOR THE Classroom
Hampden-Sydney College Faculty Scholarship 2005-2008
A report by the Office of the Dean of the Faculty
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