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Sabotage in Tournaments: Making the Beautiful Game a Bit Less Beautiful

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Author Info
Garicano, Luis
Palacios-Huerta, Ignacio

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Abstract

We exploit an incentive change in professional soccer leagues aimed at encouraging more attacking and goal scoring to obtain evidence on the effect of stronger incentives on productive and destructive effort. Using as control the behavior of the same teams in a competition that experienced no changes in incentives, we provide differences-in-differences estimates of the effect of the incentive change on the behavior of teams. We find that, although teams increased offensive effort, they also increased destructive effort (`sabotage') substantially, resulting in no net change in scoring. When ahead, teams became more conservative, increasing their defenders, scoring less goals, and allowing fewer attempts to score by their opponents. We also find that teams that engage more in sabotage activities depress the attendance at their rival's home stadiums, and that indeed attendance suffered as a result of the incentive change. Thus, teams responded to stronger incentives, but in an undesirable way.

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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 5231.

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Date of creation: Sep 2005
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Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5231

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Related research
Keywords: incentives; multitasking; sabotage; tournaments;

Find related papers by JEL classification:
D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior
D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information
J41 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Labor Contracts
L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation
M52 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Personnel Economics - - - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects
M55 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Personnel Economics - - - Labor Contracting Devices

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References listed on IDEAS
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  1. Itoh, Hideshi, 1992. "Cooperation in Hierarchical Organizations: An Incentive Perspective," Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 8(2), pages 321-45, April.
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    Other versions:
  3. Gibbons, Robert, 1998. "Incentives in Organizations," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 115-32, Fall. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Drago, Robert & Garvey, Gerald T, 1998. "Incentives for Helping on the Job: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(1), pages 1-25, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Rafael Rob & Peter Zemsky, 2002. "Social Capital, Corporate Culture, and Incentive Intensity," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 33(2), pages 243-257, Summer.
  8. Lazear, Edward P, 1989. "Pay Equality and Industrial Politics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(3), pages 561-80, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Itoh, Hideshi, 1991. "Incentives to Help in Multi-agent Situations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(3), pages 611-36, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Cragg, Michael, 1997. "Performance Incentives in the Public Sector: Evidence from the Job Training Partnership Act," Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 13(1), pages 147-68, April.
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  15. Baker, George P, 1992. "Incentive Contracts and Performance Measurement," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(3), pages 598-614, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Mark Duggan & Steven D. Levitt, 2002. "Winning Isn't Everything: Corruption in Sumo Wrestling," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1594-1605, December. [Downloadable!]
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  17. P.-A. Chiappori & S. Levitt & T. Groseclose, 2002. "Testing Mixed-Strategy Equilibria When Players Are Heterogeneous: The Case of Penalty Kicks in Soccer," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1138-1151, September. [Downloadable!]
  18. Rosen, Sherwin, 1986. "Prizes and Incentives in Elimination Tournaments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 701-15, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  19. Robert Gibbons, 1998. "Incentives in Organizations," NBER Working Papers 6695, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Stephen Dobson & John Goddard, 2008. "Strategic behaviour and risk taking in football," Working Papers 2008/7, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham Business School, Economics Division. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Jeffrey Carpenter & Peter Hans Matthews & John Schirm, 2007. "TOURNAMENTS AND OFFICE POLITICS: Evidence from a real effort experiment," Middlebury College Working Paper Series 0709, Middlebury College, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Babatunde Buraimo & David Forrest & Robert Simmons, 2007. "The Twelfth Man? Refereeing Bias in English and German Soccer," Working Papers 0707, International Association of Sports Economists. [Downloadable!]
  4. Moschini, GianCarlo, 2008. "Incentives and Outcomes in a Strategic Setting: The 3-Points-for-a-Win System in Soccer," Staff General Research Papers 12942, Iowa State University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  5. Robert Dur & Joeri Sol, 2008. "Social Interaction, Co-Worker Altruism, and Incentives," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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