Research

This study explores the impact of formally assigned leaders (team captains) and informal leaders (all-stars) on their teammates' productivity in basketball. It uses in-game injuries as random shocks to examine how the unexpected absence of leaders affects team and individual performance. The research employs a staggered difference-in-differences estimation, to study peer effects in high-stakes team environments. The key finding is that only players who are both formal and informal leaders have spillover effects on their teammates’ performance. The findings could extend to team management practices across various industries, providing insights into effective team composition and leader selection.

This study introduces ball-in-play time as a novel variable to assess potential referee bias in football concerning the decision on additional time. I begin with calculating expected additional times using ball-in-play. Hence, any systematic difference between actual and expected additional time can be considered as 'bias' if the difference depends on the winner of the match. Utilising matches played behind closed doors during the Covid-19 pandemic as a natural experiment, I find a trend that referees exhibit a bias towards home teams, but crucially, only in the presence of fans. This suggests that social pressure, put by fans, significantly influences the decisions of individuals. Then, the study examines the post-pandemic period, exploring if referees could adjust to an impartial stance due to their experience during matches played behind closed doors. Regrettably, the propensity to favour home teams remains prevalent once fans return to the stadiums. The study further examines referee behaviour when there is a strength difference between the competing teams to investigate big or favourite team bias.

If Sir Alex Ferguson had embarked on his managerial career in Turkey, would he have been able to maintain his position for nearly three decades, as he did at Manchester United? This study examines the relationship between the patience levels of countries and the tenure time of managers by using data from football. By examining the tenure of football managers across different countries as a proxy for high-pressure leadership roles, this study offers insights into how cultural and socioeconomic factors shape employment practices and job security in various sectors. The analysis shows that the patience level of a country and the tenure duration of football managers are positively correlated. To examine if this correlation implies a causal link, I employ two distinct instrumental variables for patience and find confirming results. Moreover, a survival analysis, namely the accelerated failure time model, confirms the findings. The findings are robust to alternative measures of patience.

This study investigates human decision-making under social pressure, using football referee decisions as a natural experiment. I examine how relative team strength affects the additional time decision in football. Exploiting the Covid-19 pandemic as a natural experiment, results indicate a significant bias towards favourite teams when fans are present, with referees adding more time when favourites are trailing and less than expected when leading. This bias is considerably reduced in matches played behind closed doors during Covid-19, suggesting a strong influence of crowd pressure. The magnitude of bias increases with the disparity in team strength, particularly in close matches where additional time could change the outcome. These findings contribute to our understanding of human decision-making under pressure and raise important questions about fairness. The study concludes by proposing a method to mitigate the observed bias.