nep-spo New Economics Papers
on Sports and Economics
Issue of 2018‒08‒27
five papers chosen by
Humberto Barreto
DePauw University

  1. The Negative Effect of NCAA Football Bowl Bans on University Enrollment and Applications By Austin F. Eggers; Peter A. Groothuis; Parker Redding; Kurt W. Rotthoff
  2. Use of extra-school time and child behaviours. Evidence from the UK. By Meroni, Elena Claudia; Piazzalunga, Daniela; Pronzato, Chiara
  3. Fooled by randomness: over-rewarding luck By Gauriot, Romain; Page, Lionel
  4. The Role of Physical Attractiveness in Tennis TV-Viewership By Helmut Dietl; Anil Özdemir; Andrew Rendall
  5. The determinants of children's use of extra-school time in Europe. By Labriola, Silvia; Pronzato, Chiara

  1. By: Austin F. Eggers; Peter A. Groothuis; Parker Redding; Kurt W. Rotthoff
    Abstract: Universities provide consumption amenities to students in addition to their educational services. Collegiate sports programs have been characterized one of these consumption amenities. Previous research has shown that athletic success has a positive impact on both the quantity and quality of students attending a university. Alternatively, we analyze if athletic malfeasance, as measured by NCAA postseason bowl bans of football programs, negatively affects either the quantity or quality of student applications or enrollment. Our findings suggest that athletic malfeasance that results in a postseason football bowl ban lowers the quantity of applications, admittances, and enrollment. We do not, however, detect any reduction in student quality at the sanctioned university. Our results demonstrate that impropriety by an athletics program directly impacts a university’s non-athlete student enrollment by influencing the amenity mix provided by the university. Key Words: Higher Education, NCAA, Athletic Malfeasance
    JEL: I23 J24
    Date: 2018
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:apl:wpaper:18-13&r=spo
  2. By: Meroni, Elena Claudia; Piazzalunga, Daniela; Pronzato, Chiara (University of Turin)
    Abstract: In this paper, we study the effects of extra-school activities on children’s non-cognitive development, using data from the Millennium Cohort Study (UK) and focusing on children aged 7-11 years old. We classify the time spent out of school into six homogenous groups of activities, using principal component analysis, and estimate the relationship thereof with five behavioural dimensions drawn from the Strength and Difficulties questionnaire, exploiting the panel structure of the data. Results show the beneficial effects on children’s behaviour of sports, school-related activities, time with parents and household chores, while a small detrimental effect of video-screen time is detected. We test the robustness of our estimates against omitted variable bias, and the results are confirmed. We also observe that children from more advantaged backgrounds have easier access to more beneficial activities. Overall, our results suggest that different uses of time may reinforce inequalities across children from different backgrounds.
    Date: 2018–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:dipeco:201811&r=spo
  3. By: Gauriot, Romain; Page, Lionel
    Abstract: e provide evidence of a violation of the informativeness principle whereby lucky successes are overly rewarded. We isolate a quasi-experimental situation where the success of an agent is as good as random. To do so, we use high quality data on football (soccer) matches and select shots on goal which landed on the goal posts. Using non scoring shots, taken from a similar location on the pitch, as counterfactuals to scoring shots, we estimate the causal effect of a lucky success (goal) on the evaluation of the player’s performance. We find clear evidence that luck is overly influencing managers’ decisions and evaluators’ ratings. Our results suggest that this phenomenon is likely to be widespread in economic organizations.
    Keywords: contract theory; informativeness principle; quasi-experiment; outcome bias; behavioural economics
    Date: 2018–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:syd:wpaper:2018-03&r=spo
  4. By: Helmut Dietl (Department of Business Administration, University of Zurich); Anil Özdemir (Department of Business Administration, University of Zurich); Andrew Rendall (Department of Business Administration, University of Zurich)
    Abstract: What is beautiful is good, the ancient Greek lyric poet Sappho wrote over 2,500 years ago. Studies in social sciences, anthropology, psychology, and economics have shown various effects of physical attractiveness. Physically attractive people are hired more often, receive faster promotion, and generally earn more per hour; thus, there is a beauty premium. However, within the context of sports, little is known about consumer preferences concerning athletes’ physical attractiveness. In this study, we analyze 622 live tennis matches from 66 Grand Slam tournaments between 2000 and 2016, examining the relationship between attractiveness, measured by tennis players’ facial symmetry, and TV-viewership. We show that facial symmetry plays a positive role for female matches while there is no significant effect for male matches. The effect persists in several subsample regressions and robustness checks. Our results have important implications for managers in the field of sports. TV-broadcasters will likely acknowledge additional revenue potential from advertising due to increased viewership and change their programming accordingly. We contribute to the sports management and economics literature in that we introduce a new method to measure facial symmetry and show that physical attractiveness plays a positive role in tennis TV-viewership.
    Keywords: physical attractiveness, demand, consumer discrimination, tennis
    JEL: L83 D12
    Date: 2018–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zrh:wpaper:376&r=spo
  5. By: Labriola, Silvia; Pronzato, Chiara (University of Turin)
    Abstract: In this paper, we describe what children do in their extra-school time in Europe, and explore the determinants of the use of their time in order to assess whether differences exist across families with different characteristics, as well as between European countries. Using data for the Multinational Time Use data, we analyse children’s time engaged in sports and games, as well as social, cultural, and religious events. We also observe the time spent with parents, both playing and studying. We find parental background and family characteristics to be important: parental education increases the time spent together in both educational and playing activities, while parental work – probably as a proxy of income – increases children’s time in sports, social and cultural events.
    Date: 2018–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:dipeco:201809&r=spo

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