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Professional football is a globalized game in which players are the most valuable assets for clubs. In this study, we explore the evolution of the football players’ transfer network among 21 European first leagues between the seasons 1996/1997 and 2015/2016. From a topological point of view, we show that this network achieved an upper limit expansion around season 2007/2008, thereafter becoming more connected and dense. Using a machine learning approach based on Self-Organizing Maps and Principal Component Analysis we confirm that European competitions, such as the UEFA Champions League or UEFA Europa League, are indeed a “money game” where the clubs with the highest transfer spending achieve better sportive performance. Some clubs’ transfer market activities also affect domestic performance. We conclude from our findings that the relationship between transfer spending and domestic or international sportive performance might lead to substantial inequality between clubs and leagues, while potentially creating a virtuous (vicious) circle in which these variables reinforce (weaken) each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the effects of the quantity of information on the tendency to contribute to crowdfunding campaigns. Using the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, we analyze the campaign descriptions and the performance of over 70,000 projects. We look empirically at the effect of information quantity (word count) on funding success (as measure by amount raised and number of backers). Within this empirical approach, we test whether an excessive amount of information will affect funding success. To do so, we test for the non-linearity (quadratic) effect of our independent variable (word count) using regression analysis. Consistent with the hypothesis that excess information will negatively affect funds raised and number of contributors, we observe a consistent U-shaped relationship between campaign text length and overall success which suggest that an optimal number of words exists within crowdfunding texts and that going over this point will reduce a project’s chance of fundraising success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the public debate over stem cell research continues, the observable voting behaviour in Switzerland offers a unique opportunity to compare the voting behaviour of politicians with that of voters. By analysing the outcomes of a referendum on a liberal new bill regulating such research, we reveal an about 10 percentage point lower conditional probability of the bill being accepted by politicians than by voters. Whereas the behaviour of politicians is driven almost entirely by party affiliation, citizen votes are driven not only by party attachment but also by church attendance. Seldom or never attending church increases the probability of bill acceptance by over 15 percentage points, while supporting the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party instead of the Christian Democratic Party makes supporting the bill more likely for voters, suggesting that religious observance is important. The observance of these tendencies in Switzerland—an environment that promotes discussion through direct democratic rights—strongly suggests that citizens see the benefits of stem cell research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ultimatum bargaining game (UBG), a widely used method in experimental economics, clearly demonstrates that motives other than pure monetary reward play a role in human economic decision making. In this study, we explore the behaviour and physiological reactions of both responders and proposers in an ultimatum bargaining game using heart rate variability (HRV), a small and nonintrusive technology that allows observation of both sides of an interaction in a normal experimental economics laboratory environment. We find that low offers by a proposer cause signs of mental stress in both the proposer and the responder; that is, both exhibit high ratios of low to high frequency activity in the HRV spectrum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a quasi-natural voting experiment encompassing a 160-year period (1848–2009) in Switzerland, we investigate whether a higher level of complexity leads to increased reliance on trusted parliamentary representatives. We find that when more referenda are held on the same day, constituents are more likely to refer to parliamentary recommendations when making their decisions. This finding holds true even when we narrow our focus to referenda with a relatively lower voter turnout on days on which more than one referendum is held. We also demonstrate that when constituents face a higher level of complexity, they follow the parliamentary recommendations rather than those of interest groups. “Viewed as a geometric figure, the ant’s path is irregular, complex, hard to describe. But its complexity is really a complexity in the surface of the beach, not a complexity in the ant.” ( [1] p. 51) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]