| Abstract: |
This study presents evidence on the role of moral support on performance in a
competitive environment. We take advantage of an unusual change in the
Argentinean football legislation. In August 2013, as a matter of National
security, the Argentinean government forced all the teams of the first
division to play their games with only home team supporters. Supporters of the
visiting teams were not allowed to be in stadiums during league games. We
estimate the effect of this exogenous variation of supporters on team
performance, and we find that visiting teams are, on average, about 20% more
likely to lose without their supporters. Moreover, we find that the lack of
supporters of the visiting team increased the score differential between the
home team and the visitor. The effect of the ban is stronger for big teams,
who have the highest number of supporters when playing away. In addition, we
find no evidence of changes of referees' decisions due to the ban, suggesting
that the effect on team performance is due to the loss of moral support rather
than a change in referees hostility. As placebo test, we run the analysis
using contemporaneous cup matches, where the visiting team supporters were
allowed to attend. We find no effect of the ban on the cup games, which
provides additional empirical support to our findings. Our results offer
unique and novel empirical evidence of the importance on moral support on
performance. |