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IN‐SEASON HEAD‐COACH DISMISSALS AND THE PERFORMANCE OF PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL TEAMS
Author(s) -
van Ours Jan C.,
van Tuijl Martin A.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
economic inquiry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.823
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1465-7295
pISSN - 0095-2583
DOI - 10.1111/ecin.12280
Subject(s) - football , football players , head (geology) , exploit , football team , control (management) , association (psychology) , psychology , economics , political science , management , computer science , computer security , geomorphology , law , geology , psychotherapist
This paper studies the causes and consequences of in‐season changes of the head‐coach of association football teams. We exploit data from the highest level of Dutch professional football during 14 successive seasons. An in‐season change of the head‐coach depends on recent match results and the difference between actual results and expectations as measured using bookmaker data. We find that, after the head‐coach has been replaced, teams perform better than before. However, the performance is also better than before for a control group of coach replacements that did not occur. From this we conclude that replacement of head‐coaches does not improve team performance. ( JEL J44, L83)