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on Sports and Economics |
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Issue of 2009‒10‒31
five papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao Polytechnic Institute of Portalegre and Technical University of Lisbon |
| By: | Dawson, Peter; Dobson, S |
| Abstract: | This study considers the influences on agents’ decisions in an international context. Using data from five seasons of European cup football matches it is found that referees favour home teams when awarding yellow and red cards. Previous research on referee decisions in national leagues has identified social pressure as a key reason for favouritism. While social pressure is also found to be an important influence in this study, the international setting shows that nationality is another important influence on the decision-making of referees. In considering principal-agent relationships account needs to be taken not only of how agents (referees) decide under social pressure but also of how national identity shapes agents’ decision making. |
| Keywords: | social pressure; nationality; decision-making; referee home bias; football |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eid:wpaper:15970&r=spo |
| By: | Dreber, Anna (Institute for Financial Research (SIFR)); Emma , von Essen (Dept. of Economics, Stockholm University); Ranehill, Eva (Stockholm School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Recent studies find that women are less competitive than men. This gender difference in competitiveness has been suggested as a possible explanation for why men occupy the majority of top positions in many sectors. In this study we explore competitiveness in children. A related field experiment on Israeli children shows that only boys react to competition by running faster when competing in a race, and that only girls react to the gender of their opponent. Here we test if these results carry over to 8-10 year old Swedish children. Sweden is typically ranked among the most gender equal countries in the world, thus culture could explain a potential difference in our results to those on Israeli children. We also introduce two more “female” sports: skipping rope and dancing, in order to study if reaction to competition is task dependent. Our results contradict previous findings in two ways. First, we find no gender difference in reaction to competition in running. In our study, both boys and girls compete. We also find no gender differences in reaction to competition in skipping rope and dancing. Second, we find no clear effect on competitiveness of the opponent’s gender, neither on girls or boys, in any of the tasks. Our findings suggest that the existence of a gender gap in competitiveness among children may be partly cultural, and that the gap found in previous studies on adults may be caused by factors that emerge later in life. It remains to be explored whether these later factors are biological or cultural. |
| Keywords: | competitiveness; gender differences; field experiment |
| JEL: | C93 J16 |
| Date: | 2009–10–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sunrpe:2009_0017&r=spo |
| By: | Stephan Nüesch (Institute for Strategy and Business Economics, University of Zurich); Hartmut Haas (Towers Perrin) |
| Abstract: | Scenario studies in social psychology have shown that more negative feelings are attributed to negative outcomes following abnormal behavior than to the same negative outcomes caused by normal behavior. This study employs field data to test whether individuals avoid unconventional behavior in order to reduce anticipated negative affections. Using panel data from professional German soccer, we find evidence that after a positive game result, soccer coaches follow the “never change a winning team” heuristic, whereas after a lost game, coaches become more active and change the starting lineup. This effect is robust to the inclusion of potential confounders such as injuries, suspensions, and unobserved heterogeneity of the coaches and the teams and cannot be explained by increased subsequent team performance. |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iso:wpaper:0112&r=spo |
| By: | Siddhartha K. Rastogi;Satish Y. Deodhar |
| Abstract: | In April 2008, BCCI initiated Indian Premier League, a cricket tournament of Twenty-Twenty overs to be played among eight domestic teams. Team owners bid for the services of cricketers for a total of US$ 42 million. Not much is known about how the valuation of cricketers might have occurred. Given the data on final bid prices, cricketing attributes of players, and other relevant information, we try to understand which attributes seem to be important and what could be their relative valuations. We employ the bid and offer curve concept of hedonic price analysis and econometrically establish a relation between the IPL-2008 final bid prices and the player attributes. Number of half centuries, number of wickets taken, and number of stumpings in all four forms of the game, batting average in the twenty-twenty form of the game, batting strike rate in one-day international (ODI), age, nationality, iconic status, and non-cricketing fame seem to be the critical attributes in the valuation of players. With the auction of incumbent and new players for the IPL-2009 underway till February 2009, we hope that the analysis of this kind would facilitate better understanding of player price formation and underscore the predictive value of such data driven analysis. |
| Date: | 2009–01–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iim:iimawp:2009-01-02&r=spo |
| By: | Egon Franck (Institute for Strategy and Business Economics, University of Zurich); Stephan Nüesch (Institute for Strategy and Business Economics, University of Zurich); Jan Pieper (Institute for Strategy and Business Economics, University of Zurich) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we empirically investigate the performance effect of team-specific human capital in highly interactive teams. Based on the tenets of the resource-based view of the firm and on the ideas of typical learning functions, we hypothesize that team members’ shared experience in working together positively impacts team performance, but at diminishing rates. Holding a team’s stock of general human capital and other potential drivers constant, we find support for this prediction. Implications concerning investment decisions into human capital as well as the transferability of our findings to other contexts are discussed. |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iso:wpaper:0113&r=spo |