Analyzing the neutrality of referees during nine German premier league (1. Bundesliga) soccer seasons, this paper documents evidence that social forces influence agents' preferences and decisions. Those, who are appointed to be impartial, tend to favor the home team as they systematically award more injury time in close matches when the home team is behind. Further evidence for similar home bias comes from referees' wrong, or at least disputable, decisions to award goals and penalty shots. The severity of social pressure, measured by the crowd's composition and proximity to the action, determines its effect. Not all agents are affected by social pressure to the same degree.
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Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number
755.
Find related papers by JEL classification: J00 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - General M50 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Personnel Economics - - - General
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References listed on IDEAS 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.:
Luis Garicano & Ignacio Palacios-Huerta & Canice Prendergast, 2001.
"Favoritism Under Social Pressure,"
Working Papers
2001-16, Brown University, Department of Economics.
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