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This paper aims to explore at what league size competitive balance reaches its best level through a longitudinal study and by using the English Premier League (EPL) as an example.

To test the influence of league size on competitive balance in the EPL, the authors first calculated competitive balance scores for 22 seasons between 1995/96 and 2016/17 under the existing 20 team system. They then calculated a further ten normalised competitive balance scores for each EPL season by adjusting the league size to examine the league size threshold at which competitive balance in each season of the EPL was at its best level.

The analysis indicates that the current league structure of 20 teams compromises the overall level of competitive balance in the EPL in comparison with a league comprising between 10 and 19 teams. However, the authors cannot pinpoint the precise league size at which the EPL is most competitively balanced, as no significant differences were observed between the competitive balance indices for these league sizes.

The findings of this study have practical relevance for league organisers and the Union of European Football Associations given that they themselves have stated that competitive balance will be a big challenge for the European football industry in the coming years.

April 18, 1967 Confidence — Confidential information — Duty — Patented invention — Confidential disclosure of similar features during business negotiations — Unconscious use of information without consent — Partly public and partly private information — Damages.

THAT THE NEWSPAPER industry has gone through a tremendous change has been obvious to all by the horrific scenes of violence shown on television over the past several months.

READERS can be forgiven if they have thought, from time to time, that we are anti‐union. This is not true, although we admit to thinking that they have for a long time forgotten their prime reason for existence — to fight for human rights for their members against what were, in days long gone by, very inhuman employers.

THERE ARE WOMEN engineers in every facet of that ubiquitous motley of professions that claim (sometimes with but little justification) to that title. There are, too, women politicians, women surgeons and physicians, women accountants, architects and one was recently appointed as Editor of a national newspaper.

It is estimated that in this country alone no less than 2,000,000 tons of food annually is destroyed by reason of the depredations of rats and mice. Neither powers nor organisations existed at the outbreak of war. which were adequate for the purpose of preventing wastage, which, under war conditions, became intolerable. That there was on the Statute Book the Rats and Mice (Destruction) Act, 1919, cannot be denied, but no authority existed for the control of destructive insects and mites in foodstuffs. The powers and duties vested in local authorities under the Rats and Mice (Destruction) Act were of little avail and it was allowed to fall into disuse without alternative provision being made. The control of these several groups of pests has for some years past been dependent on the powers derived from the Defence Regulations and continued under the Supplies and Services (Transitional Powers) Act. The profession of the rat catcher is an old and universal one. In 17th century Italy the “ professional ” was recognised by his long pole bearing a square flag on which were representations of cats and mice; the Chinese equivalent bore a sign depicting a cat in a bag. An accepted method of destruction quoted in The Book of Days is one attributed to the Irish, who believed that they could rhyme any beast to death, and in particular the rat. Another prevalent notion was that rats had a presentiment of coming evil and always deserted in time a ship about to be wrecked, or a house about to be flooded or burned. In 1854 it was seriously reported in a Scottish provincial newspaper that the night before a town mill was destroyed by fire the rats belonging to the establishment were met migrating in a body to a neighbouring field. A more scientific approach is now being made to the problem. In August, 1947, a meeting was held in London to discuss the world‐wide problem of losses as a result of damage by insects, fungi and rodents, and to consider the steps to be taken to reduce such losses. Embracing a general consideration of the problem of infestation control, the meeting, convened by Dr. L. E. Kirk, head of the Plant Industry Research Branch, Agriculture Division, F.A.O., covered many phases of the subject, ranging from the economics of the problem to the toxicity of new synthetic insecticides. Accepting the principle that efficient prevention and control of food infestation was essential to the conservation of the world's food supply, the meeting recommended that:—

Total quality management (TQM) has received considerable attention as a way to increase both the effectiveness and the efficiency of corporations (Bounds et. al., 1994; Grant, Shani and Krisnan 1994; Olian and Rynes 1991; Powell 1995; Ross 1993). Concerned primarily with the delivery of customer satisfaction, the proponents of quality and/or TQM (Deming 1986; Juran 1992; and Crosby 1979) have developed principles and procedures for achieving total quality and meeting multiple corporate goals. Empirical evidence regarding outcomes is mixed; success and failure case studies abound, statistical methodologies are questioned, and more rigorous empirical studies present some positive findings (Powell 1995). Some maintain that the reasons for the failure of TQM systems is incompatibility between existing Western management thought which is grounded in economic models, and the TQM paradigm, which evolved from statistical theory, and has its own set of assumptions (Grant, Shani and Krisnan 1994). Despite such mixed empirical results, TQM continues to be promoted and implemented. This is the beginning point for our examination of TQM. The TQ management paradigm is practiced in economically and culturally diverse environments, including those which embrace an economic perspective, complete with maximisation of shareholder wealth, self‐interest, rational decision makers, separation of ownership, and agency costs (Grant, Shani and Krishnan 1994).

ONE OF OUR panel of reviewers was handling a book on ergonomics. In the course of his critique he made a remark that could be useful to many factory managers. He said that very often quite simple adjustments, well within the capabilities of a maintenance man or department could be made (whether to plant layout or seating arrangements or whatever) that could make a vast improvement in the ease of operations and the flow of work from a machine section or group.

ALMOST everybody who is in the position of employer or staff selector has received applications from graduates who are quite certain they have all the qualities necessary to fill the post advertised or who, writing in on the off chance, imply that they possess everything required to warrant a position specifically manufactured for them to fill. The only snag is that when a close look at their diploma is taken, it reveals that they have received it for work done in a totally useless field. We have heard of a case of an applicant with a PhD that was granted for a thesis on a subject so remote from reality that it could be compared with that music‐hall joke of the one who obtained his doctorate for a thesis on the brain power shown by performing fleas.

PRESIDENT of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Sir Charles Carter is a leading economist. So is it too much to expect him to speak sheer common sense all the time?