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Subperfect Game: Profitable Biases of NBA Referees
Author(s) -
Price Joseph,
Remer Marc,
Stone Daniel F.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of economics and management strategy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.672
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1530-9134
pISSN - 1058-6407
DOI - 10.1111/j.1530-9134.2011.00325.x
Subject(s) - basketball , statistic , identification (biology) , control (management) , discretion , psychology , association (psychology) , advertising , social psychology , economics , statistics , mathematics , business , management , political science , botany , archaeology , biology , law , psychotherapist , history
This paper empirically investigates three hypotheses regarding biases of National Basketball Association referees. Identification of basketball referee bias is typically difficult as changes in observed statistics may be caused by either changes in referee bias or player behavior. We identify bias by exploiting the fact that referees have varying degrees of discretion over different types of a particular statistic‐turnovers. This allows us to conduct a treatment and control‐style analysis, using the less discretionary turnovers as the player behavior control. The results provide evidence that referees favor home teams, teams losing during games, and teams losing in playoff series. All three biases are likely to increase consumer demand.