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Does March Madness lead to irrational exuberance in the NBA draft? High-value employee selection decisions and decision-making bias

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  • Ichniowski, Casey
  • Preston, Anne

Abstract

We use detailed, personally-assembled data on the performance of collegiate and professional basketball players over the 1997–2010 period, to look at the impact of performance in the NCAA “March Madness” college basketball tournament on NBA teams’ draft decisions and players’ ultimate success in the NBA. We find that unexpected March Madness (MM) performance, in terms of team wins and player scoring, affects draft decisions, and NBA personnel who are making these draft decisions are not irrationally overweighting this MM information. If anything, the unexpected performance in the March Madness tournament deserves more weight than it gets in the draft decisions.

Suggested Citation

  • Ichniowski, Casey & Preston, Anne, 2017. "Does March Madness lead to irrational exuberance in the NBA draft? High-value employee selection decisions and decision-making bias," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 105-119.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:142:y:2017:i:c:p:105-119
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2017.07.015
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    4. David Berri & Rob Simmons, 2011. "Catching a draft: on the process of selecting quarterbacks in the National Football League amateur draft," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 37-49, February.
    5. Dennis Coates & Babatunde Oguntimein, 2010. "The Length and Success of NBA Careers: Does College Production Predict Professional Outcomes?," International Journal of Sport Finance, Fitness Information Technology, vol. 5(1), pages 4-26, February.
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    Cited by:

    1. Bastian Kordyaka & Mario Lackner & Hendrik Sonnabend, 2022. "Can too many cooks spoil the broth? Coordination costs, fatigue, and performance in high‐intensity tasks," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 88(3), pages 1065-1085, January.
    2. Richard J. Paulsen, 2022. "Peer effects and human capital accumulation: Time spent in college and productivity in the National Basketball Association," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(8), pages 3611-3619, December.
    3. Daniel H. Weinberg, 2013. "Talent Recruitment and Firm Performance: The Business of Major League Sports," Working Papers 13-54, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau, revised Feb 2014.
    4. Tobias Berger & Frank Daumann, 2021. "Anchoring bias in the evaluation of basketball players: A closer look at NBA draft decision‐making," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(5), pages 1248-1262, July.
    5. Daniel H. Weinberg, 2013. "Talent Recruitment and Firm Performance: The Business of Major League Sports," Working Papers 13-54r, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau, revised Feb 2014.
    6. Daniel H. Weinberg, 2016. "Talent Recruitment and Firm Performance," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 17(8), pages 832-862, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Decision making; Employee selection; Bias;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

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