|
on Sports and Economics |
| By: | Hegarty, Tadgh; Whelan, Karl |
| Abstract: | Sports betting markets can be considered strongly efficient if expected returns on all possible bets on an event are equal. If this form of efficiency holds, then there is a direct mapping from betting odds into probabilities of outcomes of sporting events. We compare two regression-based methods for testing this form of efficiency that have been used in previous research: One that uses normalized probabilities as the explanatory variable for event outcomes and one that uses the inverse of the decimal odds. We show that the normalized probability method produces good tests of the null hypothesis of strong market efficiency but that the inverse odds method does not, with results biased against finding favorite-longshot bias. We illustrate this finding using large datasets of bets and outcomes for tennis and soccer and also with realistic simulations. |
| JEL: | G14 L83 Z20 Z21 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19486 |
| By: | Picchio, Matteo; van Ours, Jan C. |
| Abstract: | High temperatures can have a negative effect on workplace safety for a variety of reasons. Discomfort and reduced concentration caused by heat can lead to workers making mistakes and injuring themselves. Discomfort can also be an incentive for workers to report an injury that they would not have reported in the absence of heat. We investigate how temperature affects injuries of professional tennis players in outdoor singles matches. We find that for men injury rates increase with ambient temperatures. For women, there is no effect of high temperatures on injuries. Among male tennis players, there is some heterogeneity in the temperature effects, which seem to be influenced by incentives. Specifically, when a male player is losing at the beginning of a crucial (second) fourth set in (best-of-three) best-of-five matches, the temperature effect is much larger than when he is winning. In best-of-five matches, which are more exhausting, this effect is age-dependent and stronger for older players. |
| Keywords: | Climate change; Temperature; Tennis; Injuries; Health |
| JEL: | J24 J61 Q51 Q54 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19428 |
| By: | Fernando Delbianco; Federico Fioravanti; Fernando Tohm\'e; Mart\'in Trombetta |
| Abstract: | We study the existence of a \emph{Regional Differential} in rugby sevens: whether, in tournaments where no competing team enjoys formal home status, some national sides systematically over- or under-perform depending on \emph{where} the event is staged. Using the universe of 2672 men's and women's matches from international rugby sevens tournaments played between 2016 and 2025, principally the World Rugby Sevens Series, but also the World Cup Sevens and the Olympic Games, we replace the binary ``locality'' indicator of the classic home advantage literature with continuous measures of geographic, temporal, and cultural proximity between each team and the host country. We show that aggregate associations between proximity and performance (which appear large and highly significant in naive specifications) are almost entirely an artifact of \emph{team composition} and \emph{scheduling}: once team and opponent quality are absorbed through fixed effects in a symmetric team-match panel, no general regional advantage survives. However, this null aggregate masks substantial heterogeneity. For a well-defined subset of teams (most notably France, but also New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Spain, Ireland, Kenya, Samoa, and Brazil), performance declines significantly and monotonically with the distance separating the host city from home. Some of the established southern-hemisphere powers (Fiji, South Africa, Australia, Argentina) are essentially distance-neutral. We further show that for some teams the gradient operates through east-west jet lag rather than pure displacement. The Regional Differential in sevens is therefore real but \emph{team-specific} rather than universal, a distinction obscured by pooled estimation. |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2608.16312 |
| By: | Dmitry Dagaev (New Economic School, HSE University); Elina Ibragimova (HSE University, Kyung Hee University); Ekaterina Lodneva (HSE University, New Economic School) |
| Abstract: | How do elite athletes adjust risk-taking across score contexts and tournament stages, and how do these patterns differ between men’s and women’s tournaments? We address these questions using a novel, manually coded rally-level dataset from the 2024 Olympic volleyball tournaments, covering 8, 670 rallies from 52 men’s and women’s matches. We operationalize risk through observable tactical choices — serve type and attack placement — and estimate how these choices respond to score context, set progression, and playoff stakes. We find that risk-taking is systematically gendered and context-dependent: men attempt riskier serves as sets near their end, while women grow more conservative when protecting a set lead. In attacking, both genders turn more cautious late in sets. This asymmetry aligns with prospect theory since serving is a loss-domain decision that invites risk-seeking, while attacking is a gain-domain decision that invites risk aversion. Contrary to expectations of caution under elimination pressure, both genders take more risks in the knockout stage. These findings extend behavioral models of risk to a high-stakes team sport setting, with implications for coaching and performance analysis. |
| Keywords: | risk-taking, prospect theory, gender differences, high-stakes games, sports economics, Olympic volleyball |
| JEL: | D81 Z20 J16 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:abo:neswpt:w0298 |
| By: | Jan van Ours (Erasmus University Rotterdam); Martin van Tuijl (Tilburg University) |
| Abstract: | A penalty shootout in professional football is a tie-breaking sequence of penalty kicks. A penalty kick is a shot taken from the penalty mark, at a distance of 11 meters (12 yards) from the goal line. Only the opposing goalkeeper may attempt to prevent a score. Penalty shootouts allow for the study of the relation between performance outcomes and psychological pressure. Psychological pressure may be influenced by whether or not a team starts the sequence and may be present at individual kicks that are potentially decisive on the outcome of the shootout. This paper presents an analysis of penalty shootouts in matches for the Dutch cup competition over a period of 59 seasons. We analyze the outcomes of 291 shootouts and 2, 680 individual penalty kicks from 262 of those shootouts. There is evidence of a first-mover advantage but this materializes in the early part of the sample period and not in recent years. Moreover, penalty kicks are more likely to fail under pressure. |
| Keywords: | organisational failures, blame, experiment, mistakes, lying |
| JEL: | C20 D91 J24 Z20 |
| Date: | 2026–08–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20260052 |
| By: | Henrik Guhling; Fabian Herweg |
| Abstract: | We propose a controlled and incentive-compatible design to study racial bias in team-selection decisions. In an online experiment, participants select a soccer lineup from fictitious players whose objective quality is described by numerical attributes. For each player profile, we randomly assign an AI-generated portrait depicting either a Black or a White player, allowing us to isolate the effect of racial appearance. Overall, we find no systematic evidence that White player versions are selected more frequently than otherwise identical Black versions. We also compare generic-team and national-team framing, but find no systematic amplification of racial bias. |
| Keywords: | incentivized experiment, hiring and selection, racial discrimination, soccer |
| JEL: | C91 D91 J15 J71 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12914 |
| By: | Evan M. Calford |
| Abstract: | This paper introduces ambiguity-dominance as a novel equilibrium selection procedure that, in 2x2 games, unifies risk-dominance and payoffdominance as special cases. Ambiguity-dominance provides an intuitive answer to the question "Which equilibrium is most robust to ambiguous beliefs about the behavior of other players?" and is defined for all finite normal form games. Ambiguity-dominance is parametrized by players' ambiguity preference and, using data from three recent experiments we find, on aggregate, ambiguity loving coupled with substantial subject-level heterogeneity. |
| Keywords: | Equilibrium selection, ambiguity aversion |
| JEL: | C70 D81 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:acb:cbeeco:2026-707 |
| By: | Sandambi, Nerhum |
| Abstract: | On this approach, explore the public expenditure on the FIFA World Cup hosting, countries naturally have high and strong challenges to host a tournament, for example, considering particularly on the year when Country hosting the event, exist for example strong investments in infrastructures, with strong relevant on sportive infrastructures. On majority Countries, exist naturally high implications with the hosting event, for example the successful of the tournament are naturally translated from existence on Country hosting the tournament, sportive culture, social organisation, strong political capacity of majority institutions, such as economic institutions and politics institutions. On the other hand, necessary exist for example high coordination of the public policy and work institutions, when not exist efficiency on working institutions, Countries have particularly unsuccessful with the tournament. On the other hand, majority Countries without good institutions and without good economic performance, show particularly that the respective tournament can have for example the decreases on the most important growth provided from revenues, such as the taxes revenue that are very important to guarantee good economic performance in particular. For example, other relevant policies can naturally translate high implications on year of realization of tournament, this implications are naturally based on the existence of the incapacities in large case of the economic institutions that existed in these respective Countries. The approach, show on the other hand, that the existence of the institutions incapacities are naturally the most and high important reason for increasing of public expenditure, for example, this evidence are confirmed on FIFA World Cup, Qatar 2022. Where Country was had naturally high costs of realization, representing for example, 373, 83%. On the other hand, the explosion of the costs of tournament are naturally relatively with the inexistence of the infrastructures on the Country, in lign with the inexistence of the good working institutions, such as politic and economic institutions. |
| Date: | 2026–07–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:j7syn_v1 |
| By: | Alexander Kangas |
| Abstract: | Repeated-game strategies can impose global payoff relations by balancing controlled rewards across time. The question is what remains when the opponent decides, after observing each round, whether the relationship continues. Against every history-dependent opponent strategy with finite expected duration, a cumulative linear identity is enforceable if and only if its expected stage increment vanishes at every reachable history. Strategic exit therefore converts global control into local control. In a two-action game with a unique local equalizer, the controller must use the same mixed action at every reachable history, without any memory restriction on either player. For the Prisoner's Dilemma with $(T, R, P, S)=(5, 3, 1, 0)$, the surviving identities are $(1+p)U_X+(4-p)U_Y+5(p^2-3p-1)E[\tau]=0$ The duration coefficient never vanishes on $[0, 1]$. Hence strategic bilateral exit leaves a one-dimensional payoff-duration relation, while ruling out every nontrivial payoff-only cumulative identity. |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2607.21898 |
| By: | Olga Kokshagina; Marc Santolini; Christoph Riedl |
| Abstract: | Why do some teams consistently mobilize collective effort and achieve superior performance while others struggle to coordinate action? We introduce Attention-Directing Ability (ADA), a latent team capability capturing how effectively members' interaction signals elicit engagement and coordinated responses from others. Extending the attention-based view, we conceptualize attention direction as an emergent coordination capability embedded in patterns of interaction rather than as a cognitive state or an outcome. Teams differ in the extent to which attention-directing signals trigger collective responses, and these differences shape how teams mobilize effort and perform. We examine ADA in a distributed innovation effort involving 2, 233 participants collaborating asynchronously in 79 self-organized teams across 165 public Slack channels, generating over 30, 000 messages. We model the causal responsiveness among interaction signals and derive a latent measure of ADA from teams' attention dynamics. We find that ADA strongly predicts both teams' likelihood of mobilizing engagement to sustain collective work and their performance conditional on participation. Correcting for self-selection into project submission, teams with higher ADA are more likely to submit proposals and achieve higher expert-evaluated outcomes. Causal mediation analyses show that these effects operate primarily through collective effort, indicating that attention direction functions as an upstream coordination capability. By conceptualizing attention as an emergent, measurable team capability, this study advances theories of collective attention and team coordination. |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2607.26109 |
| By: | Yannik Pitcan |
| Abstract: | Studies of association-football forecasting routinely report three-way accuracy in the low fifties and present it as competitive with the betting market. Accuracy against a uniform benchmark answers the wrong question; the question worth asking is whether a model carries information a margin-free closing price has not already absorbed. We formalise that test as the fitted weight in a logarithmic opinion pool and apply it to nineteen complete Serie A seasons (7, 220 matches). The answer is negative and stable. A Dixon-Coles model with tuned exponential decay attains 53.4% accuracy and a Ranked Probability Score of 0.1972 against the market's 0.1905; the paired difference is +0.0067 (95% CI [0.0046, 0.0088]) and the market wins in all seven test seasons. The fitted pooling weight on the structural model is 0.000, and the log-loss profile is monotone increasing in that weight on validation and test alike, so this is a boundary solution, not an optimisation artefact. Refitting the same machinery to shots on target yields a variant earning weight 0.35 against the goals model -- it carries information the goals model lacks -- and 0.000 against the market. Two structural signals, each informative about the other, both priced. The structural model is better calibrated than the market on the home-win margin (slope 0.995 versus 1.103) while clearly less sharp: the market's advantage is discrimination rather than honesty, which accuracy alone cannot distinguish. Value lies not in a better forecast but in what is built on a calibrated one. We define match leverage, the change in a club's probability of achieving a season objective between winning and losing a fixture, and compute it for ACF Fiorentina: an away fixture against a relegation rival carried 2.25x the leverage of hosting the eventual champions. The paper also documents and corrects errors in an earlier study of our own. |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2608.11505 |
| By: | Sam Hoey (Erasmus University Rotterdam); Thomas Peeters (Erasmus University Rotterdam); Stefan Szymanski (University of Michigan) |
| Abstract: | We study racial disparities in advancement to top management using the careers of 4, 770 former frontline workers from a prominent industry in England. Black workers are substantially less likely than non-Black workers to reach top managerial positions (11 versus 20 percent). We identify three sources of this gap: lower entry into management, lower promotion rates within management, and shorter tenure in senior managerial roles. Counterfactual simulations show that barriers to entering management explain most of the racial gap early in workers’ careers, while differences in promotion rates become the dominant driver later on. |
| Keywords: | racial discrimination, career progression, systemic discrimination, football managers |
| JEL: | J24 M50 M54 |
| Date: | 2026–08–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20260053 |