Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/224020 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 13578
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
The Covid-19 pandemic has induced worldwide natural experiments on the effects of crowds. We exploit one of these experiments currently taking place over several countries in almost identical settings: professional football matches played behind closed doors. We find large and statistically significant effects on the number of yellow cards issued by referees. Without a crowd, fewer cards were awarded to the away teams, reducing home advantage. These results have implications for the influence of social pressure and crowds on the neutrality of refereeing decisions.
Subjects: 
attendance
Coronavirus
COVID-19
home advantage
natural experiments
referee bias
social pressure
JEL: 
C90
D91
L83
Z20
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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