IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jospec/v18y2017i1p34-57.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Production, Efficiency, and Corruption in Italian Serie A Football

Author

Listed:
  • Fiona Carmichael
  • Giambattista Rossi
  • Denis Thomas

Abstract

This article uses data for Italian Serie A to estimate a production function for the league and the relative efficiency of the clubs playing in it. It utilizes a panel data set comprising season aggregated match statistics for 36 Serie A clubs that played over 10 seasons from 2000 to 2010. The seasons affected by the Calciopoli corruption scandal are incorporated with specific indicators in the statistical model. The results highlight the importance of attacking play in Serie A, the role played by historic success or lack of it and, more tentatively, the potential gains and also costs from fraudulent behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Fiona Carmichael & Giambattista Rossi & Denis Thomas, 2017. "Production, Efficiency, and Corruption in Italian Serie A Football," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 18(1), pages 34-57, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jospec:v:18:y:2017:i:1:p:34-57
    DOI: 10.1177/1527002514551802
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1527002514551802
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1527002514551802?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Scott E. Atkinson & Linda R. Stanley & John Tschirhart, 1988. "Revenue Sharing as an Incentive in an Agency Problem: An example from the National Football League," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 19(1), pages 27-43, Spring.
    2. Henry Kaiser, 1958. "The varimax criterion for analytic rotation in factor analysis," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 23(3), pages 187-200, September.
    3. Carlos Pestana Barros & Albert Assaf & Fabio Sá-Earp, 2010. "Brazilian Football League Technical Efficiency: A Simar and Wilson Approach," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 11(6), pages 641-651, December.
    4. Carlos Pestana Barros & Pedro Garcia-del-Barrio & Stephanie Leach, 2009. "Analysing the technical efficiency of the Spanish Football League First Division with a random frontier model," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(25), pages 3239-3247.
    5. Bernd Frick & Robert Simmons, 2008. "The impact of managerial quality on organizational performance: evidence from German soccer," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(7), pages 593-600.
    6. Stefan Wagner, 2010. "Managerial succession and organizational performance-evidence from the German Soccer League," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(6), pages 415-430.
    7. Manuel Espitia-Escuer & Lucà a Isabel Garcà a-Cebrià n, 2004. "Measuring the Efficiency of Spanish First-Division Soccer Teams," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 5(4), pages 329-346, November.
    8. Dieter J. Haas, 2003. "Technical Efficiency in the Major League Soccer," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 4(3), pages 203-215, August.
    9. Scully, Gerald W, 1974. "Pay and Performance in Major League Baseball," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(6), pages 915-930, December.
    10. Simon Rottenberg, 1956. "The Baseball Players' Labor Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64, pages 242-242.
    11. Isidoro Guzmán & Stephen Morrow, 2007. "Measuring efficiency and productivity in professional football teams: evidence from the English Premier League," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 15(4), pages 309-328, November.
    12. Manuel Espitia-Escuer & Lucia Isabel Garcia-Cebrián, 2010. "Measurement of the efficiency of football teams in the Champions League," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(6), pages 373-386.
    13. De Paola, Maria & Scoppa, Vincenzo, 2008. "The Effects of Managerial Turnover: Evidence from Coach Dismissals in Italian Soccer Teams," MPRA Paper 11030, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Boscá, José E. & Liern, Vicente & Martínez, Aurelio & Sala, Ramøn, 2009. "Increasing offensive or defensive efficiency? An analysis of Italian and Spanish football," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 63-78, February.
    15. Raul Caruso & Marco Di Domizio, 2012. "Hooliganism and demand for football in Italy. Evidence for the period 1962-2011," DISCE - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Politica Economica ispe0062, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    16. Carlos Pestana Barros & Stephanie Leach, 2006. "Analyzing the Performance of the English F.A. Premier League With an Econometric Frontier Model," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 7(4), pages 391-407, November.
    17. Sala-Garrido Ramon & Liern Carrión Vicente & Martinez Esteve Aurelio & Boscá José E., 2009. "Analysis and Evolution of Efficiency in the Spanish Soccer League (2000/01 - 2007/08)," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-24, January.
    18. I. García-Sánchez, 2007. "Efficiency and effectiveness of Spanish football teams: a three-stage-DEA approach," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 15(1), pages 21-45, March.
    19. Charles E. Zech, 1981. "An Empirical Estimation of a Production Function: The Case of Major League Baseball," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 25(2), pages 19-23, October.
    20. Carlos Pestana Barros & Stephanie Leach, 2006. "Performance evaluation of the English Premier Football League with data envelopment analysis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(12), pages 1449-1458.
    21. Alessandro Baroncelli & Umberto Lago, 2006. "Italian Football," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 7(1), pages 13-28, February.
    22. Boeri, Tito & Severgnini, Battista, 2011. "Match rigging and the career concerns of referees," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 349-359, June.
    23. Zak, Thomas A & Huang, Cliff J & Siegfried, John J, 1979. "Production Efficiency: The Case of Professional Basketball," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(3), pages 379-392, July.
    24. Scully, Gerald W., 1995. "The Market Structure of Sports," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226743950, September.
    25. Fiona Carmichael & Dennis Thomas & Robert Ward, 2000. "Team performance: the case of English Premiership football," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(1), pages 31-45.
    26. Peter Dawson & Stephen Dobson & Bill Gerrard, 2000. "Estimating Coaching Efficiency in Professional Team Sports: Evidence from English Association Football," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 47(4), pages 399-421, September.
    27. Francisco González-Gómez & Andrés J. Picazo-Tadeo, 2010. "Can We Be Satisfied With Our Football Team? Evidence From Spanish Professional Football," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 11(4), pages 418-442, August.
    28. Pitt, Mark M. & Lee, Lung-Fei, 1981. "The measurement and sources of technical inefficiency in the Indonesian weaving industry," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 43-64, August.
    29. Maria De Paola & Vincenzo Scoppa, 2012. "The Effects of Managerial Turnover," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 13(2), pages 152-168, April.
    30. Fiona Carmichael & Dennis Thomas & Robert Ward, 2001. "Production and Efficiency in Association Football," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 2(3), pages 228-243, August.
    31. Carlos Pestana Barros & Julio del Corral & Pedro Garcia-del-Barrio, 2008. "Identification of Segments of Soccer Clubs in the Spanish League First Division With a Latent Class Model," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 9(5), pages 451-469, October.
    32. Torben Tiedemann & Tammo Francksen & Uwe Latacz-Lohmann, 2011. "Assessing the performance of German Bundesliga football players: a non-parametric metafrontier approach," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 19(4), pages 571-587, December.
    33. Audas, Rick & Dobson, Stephen & Goddard, John, 2002. "The impact of managerial change on team performance in professional sports," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 54(6), pages 633-650.
    34. Dieter J. Haas, 2003. "Productive efficiency of English football teams-a data envelopment analysis approach," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(5), pages 403-410.
    35. Trevor Collier & Andrew L. Johnson & John Ruggiero, 2011. "Measuring Technical Efficiency in Sports," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 12(6), pages 579-598, December.
    36. Peter Dawson & Stephen Dobson, 2002. "Managerial efficiency and human capital: an application to English association football," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(8), pages 471-486.
    37. Rick Audas & Stephen Dobson & John Goddard, 1999. "Organizational performance and managerial turnover," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(6), pages 305-318.
    38. Greene, William, 2005. "Reconsidering heterogeneity in panel data estimators of the stochastic frontier model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 126(2), pages 269-303, June.
    39. Barros, Carlos Pestana & Garcia-del-Barrio, Pedro, 2008. "Efficiency measurement of the English football Premier League with a random frontier model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 994-1002, September.
    40. Carlos Pestana Barros & Stephanie Leach, 2007. "Technical efficiency in the English Football Association Premier League with a stochastic cost frontier," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(10), pages 731-741.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. R. Todd Jewell, 2020. "NCAA Expenditure and Efficiency: Analyzing Generated and Allocated Revenue in the Football Bowl Subdivision," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(4), pages 363-390, May.
    2. Miquel Carreras-Simó & Jaume García, 2022. "Offensive/Defensive Talent and Sporting Success in Football: Evidence From the Big Five European Leagues," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 23(3), pages 251-276, April.
    3. David Boto‐García & Carlos Varela‐Quintana & Alvaro Muñiz, 2023. "Foreign players, team production, and technical efficiency: Evidence from European soccer," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(4), pages 1209-1241, October.
    4. C. P. Barros & O. H. dos S. Figueiredo & Silvestre Dumbo, 2016. "A performance assessment of the Angolan soccer league," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(29), pages 2711-2720, June.
    5. Jorge Garcia-Unanue & Jose Luis Felipe & Leonor Gallardo & Carlos Majano & Gemma Perez-Lopez, 2021. "Decentralisation and Efficiency in Municipal Sports Services: Expenditure vs. Cost," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-13, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fiona Carmichael & Dennis Thomas, 2014. "Team performance: production and efficiency in football," Chapters, in: John Goddard & Peter Sloane (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Professional Football, chapter 10, pages 143-165, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. J. Brandon Bolen & Jon Rezek & Joshua D. Pitts, 2019. "Performance Efficiency in NCAA Basketball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(2), pages 218-241, February.
    3. Kostas Kounetas, 2014. "Greek football clubs’ efficiency before and after Euro 2004 Victory: a bootstrap approach," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 22(4), pages 623-645, December.
    4. Andrés Picazo-Tadeo & Francisco González-Gómez, 2010. "Does playing several competitions influence a team’s league performance? Evidence from Spanish professional football," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 18(3), pages 413-432, September.
    5. Halkos, George & Tzeremes, Nickolaos, 2012. "Evaluating professional tennis players’ career performance: A Data Envelopment Analysis approach," MPRA Paper 41516, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Francisco González-Gómez & Andrés J. Picazo-Tadeo, 2010. "Can We Be Satisfied With Our Football Team? Evidence From Spanish Professional Football," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 11(4), pages 418-442, August.
    7. Carlos Pestana Barros & Gaël Bertrand & Laurent Botti & Scott Tainsky, 2014. "Cost efficiency of French rugby clubs," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(23), pages 2721-2732, August.
    8. Carlos Pestana Barros & Nicolas Peypoch & Scott Tainsky, 2014. "Cost efficiency of French soccer league teams," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(8), pages 781-789, March.
    9. Halkos, George & Tzeremes, Nickolaos, 2011. "A non-parametric analysis of the efficiency of the top European football clubs," MPRA Paper 31173, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Fabíola Zambom-Ferraresi & Lucía Isabel García-Cebrián & Fernando Lera-López & Belén Iráizoz, 2017. "Performance Evaluation in the UEFA Champions League," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 18(5), pages 448-470, June.
    11. Sergio Destefanis & Francesco Addesa & Giambattista Rossi, 2022. "The impact of COVID-19 on home advantage: a conditional order-m analysis of football clubs’ efficiency in the top-5 European leagues," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(58), pages 6639-6655, December.
    12. R. Todd Jewell, 2017. "Technical efficiency with multi-output, heterogeneous production: a latent class, distance function model of english football," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 37-50, August.
    13. Carlos Pestana Barros & Julio del Corral & Pedro Garcia-del-Barrio, 2008. "Identification of Segments of Soccer Clubs in the Spanish League First Division With a Latent Class Model," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 9(5), pages 451-469, October.
    14. Carlos Pestana Barros & Albert Assaf & Fabio Sá-Earp, 2010. "Brazilian Football League Technical Efficiency: A Simar and Wilson Approach," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 11(6), pages 641-651, December.
    15. Villa, G. & Lozano, S., 2016. "Assessing the scoring efficiency of a football match," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 255(2), pages 559-569.
    16. Barros, Carlos Pestana & Assaf, A.George & de Araujo, Ari Francisco, 2011. "Cost performance of Brazilian soccer clubs: A Bayesian varying efficiency distribution model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 2730-2735.
    17. Del Corral, Julio, 2012. "Eficiencia en el deporte: Entrenadores en la Primera División del fútbol español 2009-2011/Efficiency in Sports: Coaches in the Spanish Football First Division 2009-2011," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 30, pages 545-564, Agosto.
    18. Wen-Jhan Jane, 2013. "Overpayment and Reservation Salary in the Nippon Professional Baseball League," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 14(6), pages 563-583, December.
    19. Marc Rohde & Christoph Breuer, 2018. "Competing by investments or efficiency? Exploring financial and sporting efficiency of club ownership structures in European football," Sport Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(5), pages 563-581, December.
    20. Carlos Pestana Barros & Eduardo Couto & Antonio Samagaio, 2014. "Management ability, strategy, tactics and team performance," Chapters, in: John Goddard & Peter Sloane (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Professional Football, chapter 11, pages 166-188, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:jospec:v:18:y:2017:i:1:p:34-57. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.