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May 3, 2013

ULM economics professors win Best Paper of Conference Award

Dr. Carl Kogut, professor of economics, and Dr. Paul Nelson, professor of economics and program chair of finance, insurance, and economics at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, recently received the Best Paper of Conference Award at the Academic and Business Research Institute Meeting in New Orleans.

“It was nice to receive the recognition from our peers who reviewed the papers presented at the conference and the congratulations offered by our colleagues here,” said Kogut.

Kogut said their paper, “Is Baseball Recession-Proof?” questioned whether or not attendance at baseball games is affected by the state of the local economy.

“There were some excellent papers at the conference, so we were pleased ours was selected,” said Nelson.

As Kogut watched a baseball game last season, the broadcasters remarked on the low attendance and attributed it to the poor economy.

“This is what led to Dr. Nelson and I attempting to determine what variables have an impact on the attendance at major league baseball games, including local per-capita income,” he said.

According to Kogut, the team concluded that “Per-capita income has very little influence on attendance nowadays. So yes, baseball is recession proof.” 

Nelson expanded on the theory saying,  “Perhaps when times are bad, people seek entertainment more,”

According to their website, the mission of the Academic and Business Research Institute “is to provide a quality research publication venue for academic authors from colleges and universities whose primary focus is teaching.”

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