|
on Sports and Economics |
| By: | Subhasish M. Chowdhury (Department of Economics, University of Sheffield); Sarah Jewell (Department of Economics, University of Reading); Carl Singleton (Department of Economics, University of Reading) |
| Abstract: | Competition is often judged by official decision makers, such as judges, juries, and referees. Systematic bias in those judgements, frequently related to social identities, may have undesirable effects. We investigate whether raising awareness can correct or even reverse such bias. We use a natural experiment from international Test cricket to focus on the match umpires and their decisions. Previous research has found evidence of biased judgements favouring the home team when the umpires shared the same nationality. Policy makers solved this by employing neutral country umpires. From June 2020, home umpires temporarily returned, sometimes in empty stadiums, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that these umpires were then under substantial scrutiny, due to the previous bias being well-known and highlighted in the media, alongside a technology-driven decision review system. Through a behavioural model, we show that such circumstances may result in the in-group judgement bias being eliminated or reversed. We find no evidence of the historical bias in umpire judgements returning during the pandemic. Instead, we find over-compensating behaviour, with a pre-pandemic home team advantage of 26% in the frequency of subjective and difficult ‘leg before wicket’ decisions being eliminated by the return of home umpires. Tight decisions tended to go against the home team more frequently when home umpires were officiating. We conclude that awareness not only has a long-term effect on eliminating identity-driven judgement bias but also may reverse it against the in-group. |
| Keywords: | Natural Experiment, Identity, Judgement Bias, Social Pressure, Home Advantage |
| JEL: | D01 D91 L83 Z2 |
| Date: | 2023–07–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rdg:emxxdp:em-dp2023-10&r=spo |
| By: | David Hardt; Lea Mayer; Johannes Rincke |
| Abstract: | We analyze how the gender composition of teams affects team interactions. In an online experiment, we randomly assign individuals to gender-homogenous or gender-mixed teams. Teams meet in an audio chat room and jointly work on a gender-neutral team task. By design, effects on team performance can only work through communication. We find that all-male teams communicate more than all-female teams and outperform teams of both alternative gender compositions. In mixed teams, males strongly dominate the team conversation quantitatively. Past exposure to gender-mixed teamwork makes females more reluctant to engage in mixed teams, while for males the opposite is true. |
| Keywords: | teams, teamwork, gender composition, communication, team performance, preference for teamwork, online experiment |
| JEL: | C92 C93 D83 J16 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10550&r=spo |
| By: | Xu Lang |
| Abstract: | We study games of chance (e.g., pokers, dices, horse races) in the form of agents' first-order posterior beliefs about game outcomes. We ask for any profile of agents' posterior beliefs, is there a game that can generate these beliefs? We completely characterize all feasible joint posterior beliefs from these games. The characterization enables us to find a new variant of Border's inequalities (Border, 1991), which we call a belief-based characterization of Border's inequalities. It also leads to a generalization of Aumann's Agreement Theorem. We show that the characterization results are powerful in bounding the correlation of agents' joint posterior beliefs. |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2307.04070&r=spo |