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Criminals on the Field: A Study of College Football

Author

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  • Radek Janhuba

    (CERGE-EI, a joint workplace of Charles University and the Economics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Politickych veznu 7, 111 21 Prague, Czech Republic)

  • Kristyna Cechova

    (Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague, Smetanovo nabrezi 6, 111 01 Prague 1, Czech Republic)

Abstract

Economists have found mixed evidence on what happens when the number of police increases. On the one hand, more law enforcers means higher probability of detecting a crime, which is known as monitoring effect. On the other hand, criminals incorporate this increase into their decision making process and thus may commit less crimes, constituting the deterrence effect. This study analyzes the effects of an increase in the number of on-field college football officials, taking players as potential criminals and officials as law enforcers. Analyzing a novel play by play dataset from two seasons of college football, we report evidence of a monitoring effect being present in the overall dataset. This effect is mainly driven by offensive penalties which are called in the area of jurisdiction of the added official. The decomposition of the effect provides a limited evidence for the presence of the deterrence effect in the case of penalties with severe punishment and committed by teams with moderately high ability.

Suggested Citation

  • Radek Janhuba & Kristyna Cechova, 2017. "Criminals on the Field: A Study of College Football," Working Papers IES 2017/13, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised Jul 2017.
    • Handle: RePEc:fau:wpaper:wp2017_13
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 1-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Levitt Steven D., 2002. "Testing the Economic Model of Crime:The National Hockey League's Two-Referee Experiment," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-21, January.
    3. Robert E. McCormick & Robert D. Tollison, 2007. "Crime on the Court, Another Look: Reply to Hutchinson and Yates," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(3), pages 520-521.
    4. Carl Kitchens, 2014. "Identifying Changes In The Spatial Distribution Of Crime: Evidence From A Referee Experiment In The National Football League," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(1), pages 259-268, January.
    5. McCormick, Robert E & Tollison, Robert D, 1984. "Crime on the Court," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(2), pages 223-235, April.
    6. Kevin P. Hutchinson & Andrew J. Yates, 2007. "Crime on the Court: A Correction," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(3), pages 515-519.
    7. Aaron Chalfin & Justin McCrary, 2017. "Criminal Deterrence: A Review of the Literature," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(1), pages 5-48, March.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Football; Official; Crime; Deterrence;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H43 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Project Evaluation; Social Discount Rate
    • K14 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Criminal Law
    • Z29 - Other Special Topics - - Sports Economics - - - Other

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