Are subjective evaluations biased by social factors or connections? An econometric analysis of soccer referee decisions

Many incentive contracts are based on subjective evaluations and contractual disputes depend on judges’ decisions. However, subjective evaluations raise risks of favouritism and distortions. Sport contests are a fruitful field for testing empirically theories of incentives. In this paper the behaviour of the referees in the Italian soccer (football) league (“Serie A”) is analyzed. Using data on injury (or extra) time subjectively assigned by the referee at the end of the match and controlling for factors which may influence it (players substitutions, yellow and red cards, penalty kicks, etc.), we show that referees are biased in favour of home team, in that injury time is significantly greater if home teams are losing. The refereeing bias increases greatly when there is no running track in the stadium and the crowd is close to the pitch. Following the 2006 “Serie A” scandal we test whether favouritism emerges towards teams suspected of connections with referees finding that these teams obtain favourable decisions. Social pressure by the crowd attending the match however appears to be the main cause of favouritism. I would like to thank Francesco Aiello, Martin Brimble, Maria De Paola, Filippo Domma, Nicola Meccheri, Antonio Nicita, Michela Ponzo and two anonymous referees for useful comments. The usual caveats apply.     

FAVORITISM AND REFEREE BIAS IN EUROPEAN SOCCER: EVIDENCE FROM THE SPANISH LEAGUE AND THE UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE

In this paper, we test for, and find evidence of, referee bias in favor of home teams in European football using minute‐by‐minute analysis to control for within‐game events. The context for the analysis is Spain's Primera Liga and the Union of European Football Association (UEFA) Champions League. We find that the award of sanctions by Spanish referees in the Champions League are not significantly different to those of the referees from other countries and as such are subject to the same sources of bias. In Primera Liga matches where the crowd is separated from the pitch by running tracks, we find that the probability of the award of a yellow card to the home team is higher and that of the away team is lower compared to matches played at stadia without running tracks. Similar results are found in the Champions League, where efforts are made to hire “neutral” referees. Referee behavior is also influenced by the size of the crowd in attendance. (JEL D8, J2)     

The Carrot vs. the Stick in Work Team Motivation

This paper reports on the use of carrot (positive) and stick (negative) incentives as methods of increasing effort among members of work teams. We study teams of four members in a laboratory environment in which giving effort towards the team goal is simulated by eliciting voluntary contributions towards the provision of a public good. We test the efficiency-improving properties of four distinct environments: monetary prizes given to high contributors versus monetary fines assessed to low contributors, where high/low contributor is defined first in terms of absolute contributions and then in terms of contributions relative to abilities—which we call handicapping. Our results show that both carrot and stick can increase efficiency (i.e., contributions) levels by 10–28%. We find that handicapped incentives promise the highest efficiency levels, and when handicapping is not used penalties may be more effective than prizes. The implications for work teams and suggestions for practical implementation are discussed.     

Two universal,probabilistic measures of competitive imbalance

I propose two universal measures of competitive imbalance. The first is, like those in the existing literature, based on team season win–loss records. The second is based solely on the outcomes of the various series of individual matchups during a season. Both measures will on average equal (2p ? 1)², where p is the ‘typical’ probability that the stronger team will win any particular game. Both measures will average zero when a league is competitively balanced and will converge to 1 as the league approaches perfect imbalance. In addition, both measures are universal, in that they are on average independent of the number of teams in the league and the number of games played during the season.     

DO MANAGERS MATTER: EVIDENCE FROM E‐SPORTS

Growing importance of human resources places the role of managers at the core of company efficiency. However, there are studies that demonstrate the efficiency of teams without a manager, so‐called self‐managed teams, is higher comparing with managed teams. Thus, despite the focus on managerial efficiency in the economic literature, the issue of whether a team needs a manager is far from settled. In this paper, we use a quasi‐experimental setting from e‐Sports (competitive video gaming) to understand whether the hiring a manager is of benefit to team performance. The empirical part of the study is based on endogenous switching regression model. This method allows investigating what performance of self‐managed team would be if it will have a manager and vice versa. The dataset includes the information of prize money and features of top e‐Sports teams in Counter‐Strike: Global Offensive (e‐Sports discipline) from 2013 to 2017. The main finding of this study is that managed teams perform better than self‐managed ones but this is not due to the manager. (JEL Z2, M54, L25)     

论虚拟团队中的领导能力及其内涵的重新定位

对于分散的虚拟团队来说，可以发现在团队生命期内领导者的角色会在不同的时期由不同的团队成员扮演。研究虚拟团队旨在研究团队成员不同的任务和领导者、技术在虚拟团队中所发挥的作用。虚拟团队的形成可为领导能力的重新定义提供特殊的环境。     

Productive Efficiency and Salary Distribution: The Case of US Major League Baseball

Recent theoretical research suggests that a firm's salary structure can affect the firm's productivity. We investigate the relationship between payroll inequality and production using US Major League Baseball data. Employing panel data methods, this study finds that salary inequality has a significantly negative effect on team success. A general result is that team success in term of wins does not seem to be correlated with efficiency; specifically, some of the least successful teams are also some of the most efficient. In addition, salary inequality does not appear to be correlated with efficiency. Furthermore, revenues generated by teams are not necessarily correlated with team efficiency.     

Repeated price competition between individuals and between teams

We conducted an experimental study of price competition in a duopolistic market. The market was operationalized as a repeated game between two “teams” with one, two, or three players in each team. We found that asking (and winning) prices were significantly higher in competition between individuals than in competition between two- or three-person teams. There were no general effects of team size, but prices increased with time when each team member was paid his or her own asking price and decreased when the team's profits were divided equally. This result is consistent with a simple model of individual learning.     

DOES EXPERIENCE MATTER? SALARY DISPERSION,COACHING, AND TEAM PERFORMANCE

Using Major League Soccer as a unique dataset, this study examines the direct and indirect role of coaches' experience in determining team performance. Inspired by labor market studies, we applied traditional indicators of team salary structure and, unlike previous studies, empirically test the hypothesis that coach experience affects the way in which team salary distribution influences performance. Our results suggest that coaches with experience as professional soccer players improve team performance directly but worsen the negative effect of a skewed salary distribution. Moreover, experience as a player is more important than coaching experience. (JEL D3, J3, M5)     

Group identity and relation-specific investment: An experimental investigation

The hold-up problem has played a central role in the study of firm boundaries, which is a fundamental element of the economic study of organizations. We study a previously unexplored mechanism by which integration between two parties could mitigate the problem. Based on the social identity theory, we conjecture that group identity strengthens agents’ altruistic preferences towards group members, and this helps mitigate the hold-up problem. We test this conjecture in a laboratory experiment. Our subjects were randomly divided into two teams and asked to wear their team uniform. Task 1 required them to answer questions about trivia, where the subjects had access to a chat program that enabled them to help their team members. For Task 2, the subjects played a hold-up game with either a member of their own team (representing integration) or a member of the other team (non-integration). The experimental results support our conjectures.     

On the welfare effects of allowing unlimited renegotiation in agency relationships

We study renegotiation in an agency setting where the number of offers and accept/reject decisions parties can make is potentially unlimited. Thus any contract, either on or off the equilibrium path, may be subject to possible renegotiation. We first show that the principal will not be able to gain complete access to the agent’s private information with unlimited renegotiation, unlike when the potential number of renegotiations is finite. Rather the agent either employ a randomized reporting strategy or do not to report at all. We then identify conditions under which expected allocations are most efficient with the contract that induces no agent communication. More significantly, by doing so we also identify conditions under which the parties are made strictly worse off by committing to end renegotiation after a fixed number of rounds. We thank workshop participants at University of California, Irvine, University of Chicago, Duke University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, University of Houston, London School of Economics, University of Minnesota, Ohio State University, the Carnegie Mellon Accounting Research Conference, the editor, and an anonymous referee for their helpful comments and suggestions.     

Changing rewards in contests: Has the three-point rule brought more offense to soccer?

In the mid-nineties FIFA decided to increase from two to three the number of points assigned to the winning team of a soccer match played under traditional round-robin national leagues. Since a game of soccer can be regarded as a contest, FIFA's measure provides an interesting case-study for analysing how a change in the system of rewards (from a zero to a non-zero sum rule) may affect the contestants' equilibrium behaviour. In this paper we try to assess, both theoretically and empirically, whether FIFA's new point rule has changed soccer towards a more offensive game, in which teams adopt more risky strategies. In particular, we evaluate the “na?ve hypothesis” according to which the measure would induce every team to play always more offensively, and we explore the extent to which the change in teams' behaviour may be affected by quality differentials between teams. Our most important hypothesis is that when the asymmetry between opposing teams is large enough, an increase in the reward for victory induces the weaker team to play more defensively, rather than the opposite. By looking at a subset of matches held in the Portuguese first division league, which approximate the conditions of our model, we find support for this hypothesis. First version received: July 1999/Final version received: May 2001     

Entrepreneurship and team participation: An experimental study

Entrepreneurs are surprisingly unlikely to have partners. One possible explanation for this is that entrepreneurs have distinctive preferences for working alone rather than in teams. However, a number of alternative explanations exist, such as an inability to locate suitable partners or low profitability from having a partner. Utilizing a diverse subject population with a high proportion of active entrepreneurs, we use a team production experiment to directly examine whether entrepreneurs prefer to work alone or in a team. The experiment also measures an important determinant of entrepreneurs' performances within teams, and their relative tendency to free-ride. The data indicate that entrepreneurs, while no more likely to free-ride on their teammates, are substantially more interested in working alone than similar non-entrepreneurs.     

Skating on thin ice: rule changes and team strategies in the NHL

Abstract.  In an effort to stimulate a more exciting and entertaining style of play, the National Hockey Association (NHL) changed the rewards associated with the results of overtime games. Under the new rules, teams tied at the end of regulation both receive a single point, regardless of the outcome in overtime. A team scoring in the sudden-death 5-minute overtime period would earn an additional point. Prior to the rule change in the 1999–2000 season, the team losing in overtime would receive no points while the winning team earned 2 points. This paper presents a theoretical model to explain the effect of the rule change on the strategy of play during both the overtime period and the regulation time game. The results suggest that under the new overtime, format equally powerful teams will play more offensively in overtime resulting in more games decided by a sudden-death goal. The results also suggest that while increasing the likelihood of attacking in overtime, the rule change would have a perverse effect on the style of play during regulation by causing them to play conservatively for the tie. Empirical data confirm the theoretical results. The paper also shows that increasing the rewards to a win in regulation time would prevent teams from playing defensively during regular time.     

The minority game unpacked:

We conduct an experiment on a minority-of-three game in which each player is a team composed of three subjects. Each team can freely discuss its strategies in the game and decisions must be made via majority rule. Team discussions are recorded and their content analyzed to detect evidence of strategy co-evolution among teams playing together. Our main results show no evidence supporting the mixed strategy Nash equilibrium solution, and provide evidence more consistent with reinforcement learning models than with belief-based models. Exhibiting level-2 rationality (i.e., reasoning about others’ beliefs) is positively and significantly correlated with higher than average earnings in the game. In addition, teams that are more successful tend to become more self-centered over time, paying more attention to their own past successes than to the behavior of other teams. Finally, we find evidence of mutual adaptation over time, as teams that are more strategic induce competing teams to be more self-centered instead. Our results contribute to the understanding of coordination dynamics resting on heterogeneity and co-evolution of decision rules. In addition, they provide support at the decision process level to the validity of modeling behavior using reinforcement learning models.     

基于扎根理论的大学生创业团队凝聚力影响机制研究

团队模式已成为大学生创业的重要形式,然而,“不能同甘也不能共苦”使得大部分大学生创业团队在其合作前期就发生决裂甚至解散。关于大学生创业团队凝聚力如何产生,受哪些因素影响,其形成机理是什么等问题,目前少有考察。运用扎根理论,通过对6组创业团队24个团队成员的深度访谈,挖掘出“认可共同利益”等17个子范畴和“工作事件的影响”等5个主范畴,构建工作事件工作环境的激活—认知评价—情感反应—态度形成理论模型,并运用情感事件理论和情绪归因理论分析深层次原因。在此基础上探讨增强创业团队凝聚力的外部干预措施。     

“多团队成员身份”对创新型团队凝聚力的影响

团队认同和团队凝聚力是驱动创新型团队高绩效产出的重要因素,现实中经常存成员同时参加多个团队的情况。因此,“多团队成员身份”作为一种兼具普遍性与复杂性的工作状态,成为团队管理研究的新视角。通过对402名具有“多团队成员身份”的科研人员的调查及访谈,使用AMOS路径分析法和Bootstrap法对4个研究假设予以验证,得出以下结论：同时参加多个团队带来的信息共享优势和经验交流优势是被调查对象的共同感知;对团队氛围和负责人的认同在团队认同中具有重要影响;任务凝聚力是影响团队凝聚力的重要因素;“多团队成员身份”对团队认同及团队凝聚力具有较强的正向影响;团队认同在“多团队成员身份”和“团队凝聚力”之间具有显著的中介作用。最后从团队创新氛围和共享氛围营造、增强对负责人的认同感、提升任务凝聚力、加强沟通合作与经验交流等4个方面,提出了“多团队成员身份”背景下提升团队凝聚力的对策。     

Group polarization in the team dictator game reconsidered

While most papers on team decision-making find that teams behave more selfishly, less trustingly and less altruistically than individuals, Cason and Mui (1997) report that teams are more altruistic than individuals in a dictator game. Using a within-subjects design we re-examine group polarization by letting subjects make individual as well as team decisions in an experimental dictator game. In our experiment teams are more selfish than individuals, and the most selfish team member has the strongest influence on team decisions. Various explanations for the different findings in Cason and Mui (1997) and in our paper are discussed.      

Endogenous fertility and modified Pareto-optimality

In a world of endogenous fertility, where the number of descendants is an integral part of the economic allocation, the traditional concept of Pareto-optimality cannot be applied any longer: the number of individuals to be present on earth may vary between any two allocations we wish to compare. Therefore, the concept needs to be modified in order to give new life to the discussion of economic efficiency. This work introduces a straightforward variation of the Pareto-principle and characterizes the optimality of economic allocations according to this concept. It is shown that some of the well-known traditional results on intertemporal optimality do no longer hold. In particular, lump-sum tax instruments (or the rearrangement of initial endowments) are no longer a sufficient tool to achieve efficiency. Received: March 2003, Accepted: September 2005 This work has greatly benefitted from comments by Oded Galor, Karl Shell, Vasco Santos and an excellent anonymous referee. Many thanks to the Editor of this Journal for providing an impeccable refereeing process. Support by the European Union via the Human Capital and Mobility Grant #ERBCHBICT941218 is gratefully acknowledged.     

交互记忆系统与团队任务、成员异质性、团队绩效关系的实证研究

交互记忆系统可用于解释团队任务完成过程中的知识处理机制。本文以浙江省杭州地区的41个工作团队为样本,研究了交互记忆系统与团队任务、成员异质性、团队绩效之间的关系,在一定程度上弥补了以往实验室研究的不足。除了证实Lewis量表中有两个题目不理想外,还证实了：交互记忆系统与任务的常规程度、成员的专长异质性、团队绩效有显著相关性,而与成员的_般异质性（人口统计学特征）无显著相关性。本文采用r。指标检验组内一致性,为以后在组织研究中处理多层面问题提供了一种可行的解决办法。