The Iceman Cometh

Photo courtesy of the San Jose Sharks/Don Smith

For all you hockey fans, we bring you this picture of Peter von Allmen’s coauthor, Tom Preissing of the San Jose Sharks. Now that National Hockey League owners and players have gotten the NHL 2005 season canceled, we figured you could use a lift.

Here’s some of what’s been keeping Peter von Allmen, chair of the Department of Economics and Business, busy.

“Spousal Complementarity and Home Production,” which was accepted two years ago, finally appeared in the October 2004 issue of Journal of Economics and Sociology. This paper investigates the division of home unpaid labor in households where both spouses work.

It was co-authored with Michael Leeds, Temple University, Peter’s doctoral advisor and writing/research partner. Mike is also the husband of Eva Leeds, associate professor of economics and business.

“Teaching the Economics of Sports,” a paper Peter wrote after participating in a discussion at the Western Economic Association meeting in 2004, has been accepted by the Journal of Sports Economics for the August 2005 issue.

“The Economics of Individual Sports: Incentives, Effort and Returns” will appear in the Handbook of Sports Economics Research, edited by John Fizel of Penn State, scheduled to be published this summer.

“The Influence of Structural Changes and International Players on Competitive Balance in the NHL,” written with Aju Fenn of Colorado College, Stacey Brook of the University of Sioux Falls, and Tom Preissing (at left), a defensive player for the San Jose Sharks, will appear in the June 2005 issue of the Atlantic Economic Journal.

This paper, Peter says, began at the Western Economic Association meeting in 2003, where he and Brook gave a paper on the influence of international players on competitive balance, only to discover that Fenn and Preissing, who had been Fenn’s student at Colorado College, had similar interests. So they pooled their data.

Peter says: “It was more interesting, to me anyway, [because] Tom is a current NHL player. Well, right now no one is a current NHL player because of the labor stoppage!”

“Tom Preissing signed with the Sharks after finishing four years at Colorado College,” e-mailed David Pollak, who writes about hockey for the San Jose Mercury News. “He’s a very bright guy.”