Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/229669 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
Tinbergen Institute Discussion Paper No. TI 2020-049/IV
Publisher: 
Tinbergen Institute, Amsterdam and Rotterdam
Abstract: 
Berger and Pope (2011) show that being slightly behind increases the likelihood of winning in professional and collegiate basketball. We extend their analysis to large samples of Australian football, American football and rugby matches, but find little to no evidence of such an effect for these three sports. When we revisit the phenomenon for basketball, we do find supportive evidence for National Basketball Association (NBA) matches from the period analyzed in Berger and Pope. However, we find no significant effect for NBA matches from outside this sample period, for collegiate matches, and for matches from the Women's NBA. High-powered meta-analyses across the different sports and competitions do not reject the null hypothesis of no effect of being slightly behind on winning.
Subjects: 
competition
motivation
performance
regression discontinuity design
JEL: 
Z20
D01
D91
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
686.61 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.