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Overconfidence vs. Market Efficiency in the National Football League

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Author Info
Cade Massey
Richard Thaler

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Abstract

A question of increasing interest to researchers in a variety of fields is whether the incentives and experience present in many "real world" settings mitigate judgment and decision-making biases. To investigate this question, we analyze the decision making of National Football League teams during their annual player draft. This is a domain in which incentives are exceedingly high and the opportunities for learning rich. It is also a domain in which multiple psychological factors suggest teams may overvalue the "right to choose" in the draft -- non-regressive predictions, overconfidence, the winner's curse and false consensus all suggest a bias in this direction. Using archival data on draft-day trades, player performance and compensation, we compare the market value of draft picks with the historical value of drafted players. We find that top draft picks are overvalued in a manner that is inconsistent with rational expectations and efficient markets and consistent with psychological research.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 11270.

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Date of creation: Apr 2005
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11270

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
F21 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Investment; Long-Term Capital Movements
J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs
G1 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets

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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.:
  1. Kagel, John H & Levin, Dan, 1991. "The Winner's Curse and Public Information in Common Value Auctions: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(1), pages 362-69, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Lawrence M. Kahn, 1992. "The effects of race on professional football players' compensation," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, ILR Review, ILR School, Cornell University, vol. 45(2), pages 295-310, January.
  3. Camerer, Colin F. & Weber, Roberto A., 1998. "The Econometrics and Behavioral Economics of Escalation of Commitment: A Re-examination of Staw and Hoang's NBA Data," Working Papers 1043, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences. [Downloadable!]
  4. De Bondt, Werner F M & Thaler, Richard, 1985. " Does the Stock Market Overreact?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(3), pages 793-805, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Camerer, Colin F. & Weber, Roberto A., 1999. "The econometrics and behavioral economics of escalation of commitment: a re-examination of Staw and Hoang's NBA data," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 59-82, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  1. Paul Gompers & Anna Kovner & Josh Lerner & David Scharfstein, 2006. "Skill vs. Luck in Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital: Evidence from Serial Entrepreneurs," NBER Working Papers 12592, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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