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Altitude as handicap in rank-order football tournaments

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  • Agustin Casas
  • Yarine Fawaz

Abstract

The structure of professional sports allows us to document predictions from the theory of rank-order tournaments (Lazear and Rosen 1981). In the context of South American FIFA World Cup Qualifiers, under the presence of heterogeneous agents, handicapping the best quality players may increase the tournaments' efficiency by making the contest more competitive. In particular, we show that playing in high-altitude stadiums (above 2500 m) constitutes a handicap as the otherwise least competitive teams benefit from the existence of an altitude advantage.

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  • Agustin Casas & Yarine Fawaz, 2016. "Altitude as handicap in rank-order football tournaments," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(3), pages 180-183, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:apeclt:v:23:y:2016:i:3:p:180-183
    DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2015.1061640
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Lazear, Edward P & Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 841-864, October.
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    4. Knoeber, Charles R & Thurman, Walter N, 1994. "Testing the Theory of Tournaments: An Empirical Analysis of Broiler Production," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(2), pages 155-179, April.
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    7. Stefan Szymanski, 2010. "The Economic Design of Sporting Contests," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: The Comparative Economics of Sport, chapter 1, pages 1-78, Palgrave Macmillan.
    8. Armando Levy & Tomislav Vukina, 2004. "The League Composition Effect in Tournaments with Heterogeneous Players: An Empirical Analysis of Broiler Contracts," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(2), pages 353-378, April.
    9. Eugster Manuel J. A. & Gertheiss Jan & Kaiser Sebastian, 2011. "Having the Second Leg at Home - Advantage in the UEFA Champions League Knockout Phase?," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-11, January.
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    Cited by:

    1. Stefan Thiem, 2021. "Spillover Effects in Contests with Heterogeneous Players - Evidence from European Football," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(12), pages 1378-1394, March.

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