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In 1972 the world food situation made an about‐face, turning from surpluses and low prices to relative scarcity and high prices. Those of a Malthusian persuasion judged that we had entered a period of chronic food scarcity in which demand, spurred by population growth and rising affluence, had begun to outrun the productive capacity of the world's farmers. Other, more sanguine, observers pointed out that man had thus far avoided the Malthusian specter and would somehow have the ingenuity, foresight, or luck to continue to “muddle through,” excepting, of course, the occasional national or regional famine.

There is a paucity of empirical research that explores the financial well-being of collegiate student-athletes. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the key aspects of financial well-being (e.g. financial knowledge, financial self-efficacy and finance-related stress levels) of varsity athletes at US colleges and universities.

The authors used data from the National Student Financial Wellness Study. The data were analyzed using general linear regression models.

The findings suggest student-athletes have lower financial knowledge than students who are non-athletes. Despite their lower levels of financial knowledge, these student-athletes report higher levels of financial self-efficacy. Furthermore, even when controlling for scholarship funding, student-athletes reported lower levels of financial stress than their counterparts. One could interpret this as student-athletes having a false sense of confidence in their money management behaviors. This overconfidence can impact many areas of their overall financial well-being. Alternatively, non-athletes may not be as financially confident as they should be.

This study could be replicated with stronger measures (e.g. Financial Self-Efficacy Scale), with the inclusion of subjective financial knowledge measures, comparing the impact of demographic variables. As, most financial constructs have gender differences (Farrell et al., 2016) and race differences (Amatucci and Crawley, 2011) and depend upon college major (Fosnacht and Calderone, 2017). Another limitation of this study is the small percentage of student-athletes, a common problem with research in this area. Further research is also needed to unpack the finding that self-efficacy decreases at higher levels of financial knowledge.

It is evident that college students (athletes/non-athletes) need financial education. For universities and college coaches, this study could be used as a rationale for providing financial education for their athletes. The addition of financial courses could be used as a recruiting tool for collegiate coaches and benefit the university. Requiring financial education could also benefit universities long term as it may potentially increase the donor possibilities by alumni. As a final note, it is important that financial courses figure out ways to improve financial self-efficacy alongside financial knowledge, as findings suggest both are integral to decreasing financial stress.

Less than 4 percent of universities in the USA require students to take a personal finance course (Bledsoe et al., 2016). If more universities included personal finance as a graduation requirement and did more to engage student-athletes (and non-athletes) in financial planning, then the average level of financial knowledge would likely improve on campuses across the USA. In addition, increasing young adults financial self-efficacy could improve financial stress which is linked to mental health and physical health.

This study provides the first empirical look into the financial well-being of collegiate student-athletes across the USA. Although there are many benefits to participation in college sports, student-athletes face additional time pressures and a predisposition to clustering around certain majors. Findings suggest that collegiate athletes need additional support around their financial literacy and non-athletes may need support developing financial self-efficacy. These two findings should be used by academic institutions and athletic departments to determine how to encourage financial health in their student-athletes and general student body.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

In this chapter, the concepts of technical efficiency, efficiency, effectiveness, and productivity are illustrated. It is discussed that when firms are not homogeneous, the situation is the same as when each factor has a different unit of measurement from one firm to another, and therefore, no meaningful discrimination can be expressed, unless a set of known weights are introduced to standardize data. A linear programming data envelopment analysis model is used when a set of known weights are given to calculate the technical efficiency and efficiency of a set of homogeneous DMUs with multiple input factors and output factors. A numerical example is also provided.

In this chapter, we applied Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to a group of property and casualty insurance companies' data from 2018 to 2020. The calculated relative efficiencies were compared with selected traditionally used financial measures. We conclude that DEA and its relative efficiency calculation provide a consistent measure with selected IRIS ratios. The result and method can be used for situations when multiple ratios and change-based financial metrics provide inconsistent conclusions.