THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL FORCES: EVIDENCE FROM THE BEHAVIOR OF FOOTBALL REFEREES

doi:10.1111/j.1465-7295.2007.00112.x

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Wiley InterScience

Economic Inquiry

Volume 46 Issue 3, Pages 411 - 424

Published Online: 14 Jan 2008

A Journal of the Western Economic Association International

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THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL FORCES: EVIDENCE FROM THE BEHAVIOR OF FOOTBALL REFEREES

THOMAS J. DOHMEN ^1,*

¹ Dohmen: Professor of Economics, Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA), Maastricht University, PO Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands. Phone +31-43 388 3647, Fax +3143 388 4914, E-mail dohmen@iza.org

*I am grateful to IMP AG for providing the data. I would like to thank especially Holger Rahlfs and Jörn Wendland for their cooperation. I am also indebted to the DFB, particularly to Klaus Löw, for providing detailed information on financial rewards for referees and their evaluation. I thank Michael Collins, Armin Falk, Luis Garicano, David Huffman, Ben Kriechel, Winfried Koeniger, Steven Levitt, Canice Prendergast, Uwe Sunde, two anonymous referees, and the editor for helpful comments. I am also grateful for comments and suggestions of seminar participants at Maastricht University, the University of Chicago, Institute for the Study of Labor in Bonn, participants of the 17th Annual Conference of the European Society for Population Economics in New York and of the 58th European Meeting of the Econometric Society in Stockholm on earlier drafts of the paper. All errors are mine.

ABSTRACT

Analyzing the neutrality of referees during 12 German premier league (1. Bundesliga) soccer seasons, this paper documents evidence that social forces influence agents' decisions. Referees, who are appointed to be impartial, tend to favor the home team by systematically awarding more stoppage time in close matches in which the home team is behind. They also favor the home team in decisions to award goals and penalty kicks. Crowd composition affects the size and the direction of the bias, and the crowd's proximity to the field is related to the quality of refereeing. (JEL J00)

Online Early publication January 14, 2008

DIGITAL OBJECT IDENTIFIER (DOI)

10.1111/j.1465-7295.2007.00112.x About DOI