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It's Fourth Down and What Does the Bellman Equation Say? A Dynamic Programming Analysis of Football Strategy

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David Romer

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Abstract

This paper uses play-by-play accounts of virtually all regular season National Football League games for 1998-2000 to analyze teams' choices on fourth down between trying for a first down and kicking. Dynamic programming is used to estimate the values of possessing the ball at different points on the field. These estimates are combined with data on the results of kicks and conventional plays to estimate the average payoffs to kicking and going for it under different circumstances. Examination of teams' actual decisions shows systematic, overwhelmingly statistically significant, and quantitatively large departures from the decisions the dynamic-programming analysis implies are preferable.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 9024.

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Date of creation: Jun 2002
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9024

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L10 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - General
D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior

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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. Mark Walker & John Wooders, 2001. "Minimax Play at Wimbledon," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1521-1538, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Nardinelli, Clark & Simon, Curtis, 1990. "Customer Racial Discrimination in the Market for Memorabilia: The Case of Baseball," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 105(3), pages 575-95, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. McCormick, Robert E & Tollison, Robert D, 1984. "Crime on the Court," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(2), pages 223-35, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Gwartney, James & Haworth, Charles, 1974. "Employer Costs and Discrimination: The Case of Baseball," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(4), pages 873-81, July/Aug.. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Ehrenberg, Ronald G & Bognanno, Michael L, 1990. "Do Tournaments Have Incentive Effects?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(6), pages 1307-24, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  1. V. Bhaskar, 2004. "Rational Adversaries? Evidence from Randomized Trials in the Game of Cricket," Economics Discussion Papers 578, University of Essex, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  2. Michael Carter & Graeme Guthrie, 2002. "Cricket interruptus: Fairness and incentive in interruped cricket matches," Indian Statistical Institute, Planning Unit, New Delhi Discussion Papers 02-07, Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi, India. [Downloadable!]
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