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Unraveling yields inefficient matchings: evidence from post‐season college football bowls
Author(s) -
Fréchette Guillaume R.,
Roth Alvin E.,
Ünver M. Utku
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
the rand journal of economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.687
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 1756-2171
pISSN - 0741-6261
DOI - 10.1111/j.0741-6261.2007.00121.x
Subject(s) - matching (statistics) , championship , football , college football , measure (data warehouse) , audience measurement , database transaction , transaction cost , advertising , economics , business , marketing , microeconomics , computer science , mathematics , statistics , political science , database , law , programming language
Many markets have “unraveled” and experienced inefficient, early, dispersed transactions, and subsequently developed institutions to delay transaction timing. It has previously proved difficult, however, to measure and identify the resulting efficiency gains. Prior to 1992, college football teams were matched for post‐season play up to several weeks before the end of the regular season. Since 1992, the market has reorganized to postpone this matching. We show that the matching of teams affects efficiency as measured by the resulting television viewership, and that the reorganization promoted more efficient matching, chiefly as a result of the increased ability of later matching to produce “championship” games.