Temporal changes in home advantage in English football since the Second World War: what explains improved away performance?

This study examined temporal trends in home advantage in the top two English football divisions and used change point analysis to test the hypothesis that home advantage has not remained constant over time. Regression analysis was used to model the impact of substitutions (a proxy for "information transfer") and the points system on home advantage. The results suggest that changing from two points for a win to three points for a win has led to a 0.39 reduction (95% confidence interval=0.21 to 0.56) in the ratio of home wins to away wins. Increasing the number of substitutions is associated with a small increase in the ratio of home wins to away wins, although this is not statistically significant. The evidence indicates that, in this particular context, the extent of home advantage has diminished. This contradicts most other published work, which suggests that home advantage is stable over time. I argue that this reduction is more likely to be the result of the introduction of three points for a win, which has lessened the incentives for away teams to settle for a draw, than an increase in "information transfer". Research into temporal trends in home advantage is interesting in its own right but might, in addition, shed light on determinants of the home advantage phenomenon.     

Expert Judgment Versus Public Opinion – Evidence from the Eurovision Song Contest

For centuries, there have been discussions as to whether only experts can judge the quality of cultural output, or whether the taste of the public also has merit. This paper tries to answer that question empirically, using national finals of the Eurovision Song Contest. We show that experts are better judges of quality in the sense that the outcome of finals judged by experts is less sensitive to factors unrelated to quality than the outcome of finals judged by public opinion. Yet, experts are not perfect; their judgment does still depend on such factors. This is also the case in the European finals of the contest.     

A Description of a Simple Teaching Machine

The operation of the electrical circuit of a relatively simple teaching machine, and some ways in which this machine has been used are described.