Sabotage in Tournaments with Heterogeneous Contestants: Empirical Evidence from the Soccer Pitch

In this paper, we address the problem of sabotage in tournaments with heterogeneous contestants. In a first step, we develop a formal model, which yields the prediction that favorites exert higher productive effort, while underdogs are more tempted to engage in destructive actions (sabotage). This i...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Scandinavian journal of economics 2013-10, Vol.115 (4), p.1138-1157
Main Authors: Deutscher, Christian, Frick, Bernd, Gürtler, Oliver, Prinz, Joachim
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Athletes
D74
Economic models
Economic theory
Football
Forecasts
Game theory
Games of strategy
Germany
Heterogeneity
J33
M52
Productivity
Professional soccer
Sabotage
soccer
Studies
tournament
Tournaments & championships
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In this paper, we address the problem of sabotage in tournaments with heterogeneous contestants. In a first step, we develop a formal model, which yields the prediction that favorites exert higher productive effort, while underdogs are more tempted to engage in destructive actions (sabotage). This is because favorites have a higher return on productive effort and both types of effort are substitutes. In a second step, we use data from German professional soccer to test this prediction. In line with the model, we find that favorite teams win more tackles in a fair way, while underdog teams commit more fouls.
ISSN:0347-0520
1467-9442
DOI:10.1111/sjoe.12036