IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/coecpo/v44y2026i2p380-393.html

From bias to bliss: Racial preferences and worker productivity in tennis

Author

Listed:
  • Carsten Creutzburg
  • Wolfgang Maennig
  • Steffen Q. Mueller

Abstract

We investigate the impact of differences in consumers' racial preferences on worker productivity through the example of the home advantage (HA) effect using data on wins in men's tennis from 2001 to 2020 (pre‐COVID‐19). We identify players' racial affiliation as one of five distinct groups by combining clustering and facial recognition methods. Our empirical design allows us to distinguish among HA factors related to the presence of fans, referee bias, travel fatigue, and home‐court familiarity. We provide evidence of social environments where Black players benefit more strongly from fan support than players of other races do, resulting in increased productivity.

Suggested Citation

  • Carsten Creutzburg & Wolfgang Maennig & Steffen Q. Mueller, 2026. "From bias to bliss: Racial preferences and worker productivity in tennis," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 44(2), pages 380-393, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:44:y:2026:i:2:p:380-393
    DOI: 10.1111/coep.70004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/coep.70004
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/coep.70004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Principe, Francesco & van Ours, Jan C., 2022. "Racial bias in newspaper ratings of professional football players," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    2. James Zou & Londa Schiebinger, 2018. "AI can be sexist and racist — it’s time to make it fair," Nature, Nature, vol. 559(7714), pages 324-326, July.
    3. Erin M. Godtland & Michele Grgich & Carol Dawn Petersen & Douglas M. Sloane & Ann T Walker, 2007. "Racial Disparities In Federal Disability Benefits," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 25(1), pages 27-45, January.
    4. Bond, Timothy N. & Lehmann, Jee-Yeon K., 2018. "Prejudice and racial matches in employment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 271-293.
    5. Chase Gooding & E. Frank Stephenson, 2017. "Superstars, Uncertainty of Outcome, and PGA Tour Television Ratings," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 18(8), pages 867-875, December.
    6. Depken II, Craig A. & Ford, Jon M., 2006. "Customer-based discrimination against major league baseball players: Additional evidence from All-star ballots," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 1061-1077, December.
    7. Clark Nardinelli & Curtis Simon, 1990. "Customer Racial Discrimination in the Market for Memorabilia: The Case of Baseball," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(3), pages 575-595.
    8. Peter A. Groothuis & James Richard Hill, 2013. "Pay Discrimination, Exit Discrimination or Both? Another Look at an Old Issue Using NBA Data," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 14(2), pages 171-185, April.
    9. Christopher J. Boudreaux & Shane D. Sanders & Bhavneet Walia, 2017. "A Natural Experiment to Determine the Crowd Effect Upon Home Court Advantage," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 18(7), pages 737-749, October.
    10. Pierre-Philippe Combes & Bruno Decreuse & Morgane Laouénan & Alain Trannoy, 2016. "Customer Discrimination and Employment Outcomes: Theory and Evidence from the French Labor Market," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 107-160.
    11. Joseph Price & Justin Wolfers, 2010. "Racial Discrimination Among NBA Referees," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(4), pages 1859-1887.
    12. Russell Hillberry & David Hummels, 2003. "Intranational Home Bias: Some Explanations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 1089-1092, November.
    13. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 991-1013, September.
    14. Venkat Kuppuswamy & Peter Younkin, 2020. "Testing the Theory of Consumer Discrimination as an Explanation for the Lack of Minority Hiring in Hollywood Films," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(3), pages 1227-1247, March.
    15. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2011. "Robust Inference With Multiway Clustering," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 238-249, April.
    16. Babatunde Buraimo & Rob Simmons & Marek Maciaszczyk, 2012. "Favoritism And Referee Bias In European Soccer: Evidence From The Spanish League And The Uefa Champions League," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 30(3), pages 329-343, July.
    17. Morley Gunderson, 2003. "Age Discrimination in Employment in Canada," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 21(3), pages 318-328, July.
    18. Luis Garicano & Ignacio Palacios-Huerta & Canice Prendergast, 2005. "Favoritism Under Social Pressure," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(2), pages 208-216, May.
    19. Harb-Wu, Ken & Krumer, Alex, 2019. "Choking under pressure in front of a supportive audience: Evidence from professional biathlon," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 246-262.
    20. Candon Johnson & Eduardo Minuci, 2020. "Wage discrimination in the NBA: Evidence using free agent signings," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 87(2), pages 517-539, October.
    21. Böheim, René & Grübl, Dominik & Lackner, Mario, 2019. "Choking under pressure – Evidence of the causal effect of audience size on performance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 76-93.
    22. Dawson, Peter & Dobson, Stephen, 2010. "The influence of social pressure and nationality on individual decisions: Evidence from the behaviour of referees," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 181-191, April.
    23. Pramod Kumar Sur & Masaru Sasaki, 2020. "Measuring Customer Discrimination: Evidence From the Professional Cricket League in India," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(4), pages 420-448, May.
    24. Christopher A. Parsons & Johan Sulaeman & Michael C. Yates & Daniel S. Hamermesh, 2011. "Strike Three: Discrimination, Incentives, and Evaluation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1410-1435, June.
    25. Scoppa, Vincenzo, 2021. "Social pressure in the stadiums: Do agents change behavior without crowd support?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    26. Dorota Korenkiewicz & Wolfgang Maennig, 2023. "Women on a Corporate Board of Directors and Consumer Satisfaction," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 14(4), pages 3904-3928, December.
    27. 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 873-881, July/Aug..
    28. Alexander Cardazzi & Bryan C McCannon & Brad R Humphreys & Zachary Rodriguez, 2024. "Emotional Cues and Violent Behavior: Unexpected Basketball Losses Increase Incidents of Family Violence," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 40(2), pages 267-288.
    29. Lawrence M. Kahn, 1991. "Discrimination in Professional Sports: A Survey of the Literature," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 44(3), pages 395-418, April.
    30. Pierre-Philippe Combes & Bruno Decreuse & Morgane Laouénan & Alain Trannoy, 2016. "Customer Discrimination and Employment Outcomes: Theory and Evidence from the French Labor Market," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 107-160.
    31. Jonathan S. Leonard & David I. Levine & Laura Giuliano, 2010. "Customer Discrimination," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(3), pages 670-678, August.
    32. Karlsson, Anders & Norden, Lars, 2007. "Home sweet home: Home bias and international diversification among individual investors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 317-333, February.
    33. Smith Erin E & Groetzinger Jon D., 2010. "Do Fans Matter? The Effect of Attendance on the Outcomes of Major League Baseball Games," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 1-24, January.
    34. Brad R. Humphreys & Candon Johnson, 2020. "The Effect of Superstars on Game Attendance: Evidence From the NBA," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(2), pages 152-175, February.
    35. Mauro Caselli & Paolo Falco & Gianpiero Mattera, 2023. "When the Stadium Goes Silent: How Crowds Affect the Performance of Discriminated Groups," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(2), pages 431-451.
    36. Tomi Ovaska & Albert J. Sumell, 2014. "Who Has The Advantage? An Economic Exploration of Winning in Men's Professional Tennis," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 59(1), pages 34-51, May.
    37. Kanazawa, Mark T & Funk, Jonas P, 2001. "Racial Discrimination in Professional Basketball: Evidence from Nielsen Ratings," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 39(4), pages 599-608, October.
    38. Cohen-Zada, Danny & Krumer, Alex & Rosenboim, Mosi & Shapir, Offer Moshe, 2017. "Choking under pressure and gender: Evidence from professional tennis," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 176-190.
    39. Örn B. Bodvarsson & Brad R. Humphreys, 2013. "Labor Market Discrimination And Capital: The Effects Of Fan Discrimination On Stadium And Arena Construction," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 31(3), pages 604-617, July.
    40. Hausman, Jerry A & Leonard, Gregory K, 1997. "Superstars in the National Basketball Association: Economic Value and Policy," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(4), pages 586-624, October.
    41. Lau, Sie Ting & Ng, Lilian & Zhang, Bohui, 2010. "The world price of home bias," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 191-217, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Leo Doerr, 2024. "Aid and growth: Asymmetric effects?," Working Papers 076, Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg.
    3. Carsten Creutzburg, 2024. "The Superstar Effect in Tennis - A within-match analysis," Working Papers 079, Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chen, Shuoyu & Collins, Clay & Collins, Ivy, 2025. "Discrimination and subjective player ratings: Evidence from China," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    2. Majid Ahmadi & Gwen-Jirō Clochard & Jeff Lachman & John A. List, 2025. "Toward an Understanding of Discrimination When Multiple Channels Exist," NBER Working Papers 33391, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. J. James Reade & Dominik Schreyer & Carl Singleton, 2022. "Eliminating supportive crowds reduces referee bias," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(3), pages 1416-1436, July.
    4. Rinne, Ulf & Sonnabend, Hendrik & Wolters, Leonie, 2023. "Customer Discrimination and Ethnic Team Composition," IZA Discussion Papers 16315, IZA Network @ LISER.
    5. Duhalde Juan Cruz & Gomez Gonzalez Carlos & Clochard Gwen-Jiro & Dietl Helmut, 2025. "A large-scale field experiment to disentangle sources of statistical discrimination in a social setting," Asociación Argentina de Economía Política: Working Papers 4796, Asociación Argentina de Economía Política.
    6. Gomez-Gonzalez, Carlos & Clochard, Gwen-Jirō & Dietl, Helmut & Duhalde, Juan Cruz, 2026. "Migration and sources of discrimination in a social context: Experimental evidence from 15 Latin American countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    7. Mike Hsu, 2024. "Umpire Home Bias in Major League Baseball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 25(4), pages 423-442, May.
    8. Candon Johnson & Eduardo Minuci, 2020. "Wage discrimination in the NBA: Evidence using free agent signings," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 87(2), pages 517-539, October.
    9. Massimiliano Ferraresi & Gianluca Gucciardi, 2020. "Team performance and audience: experimental evidence from the football sector," Working papers 94, Società Italiana di Economia Pubblica.
    10. Mauro Caselli & Paolo Falco & Babak Somekh, 2024. "Inside the NBA Bubble: how Black players performed better without fans," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 37(2), pages 1-20, June.
    11. Wen‐Jhan Jane, 2023. "Hot hand or choking under pressure – Evidence from professional basketball," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 76(2), pages 223-254, May.
    12. Chowdhury, Subhasish M. & Jewell, Sarah & Singleton, Carl, 2024. "Can awareness reduce (and reverse) identity-driven bias in judgement? Evidence from international cricket," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 226(C).
    13. Bar-Eli, Michael & Krumer, Alex & Morgulev, Elia, 2020. "Ask not what economics can do for sports - Ask what sports can do for economics," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    14. Christopher A. Parsons & Johan Sulaeman & Michael C. Yates & Daniel S. Hamermesh, 2007. "Strike Three: Umpires' Demand for Discrimination," NBER Working Papers 13665, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Pramod Kumar Sur & Masaru Sasaki, 2020. "Measuring Customer Discrimination: Evidence From the Professional Cricket League in India," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(4), pages 420-448, May.
    16. Christopher A. Parsons & Johan Sulaeman & Michael C. Yates & Daniel S. Hamermesh, 2011. "Strike Three: Discrimination, Incentives, and Evaluation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1410-1435, June.
    17. Ferraresi Massimiliano & Gucciardi Gianluca, 2023. "Team performance and the perception of being observed: Experimental evidence from top-level professional football," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 24(1), pages 1-31, February.
    18. Liao, Pei-An & Zheng, Yun-Lin & Jane, Wen-Jhan, 2023. "Home Court Advantage and Referee Bias: Evidence from NBA Games Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic," Asian Journal of Applied Economics, Kasetsart University, Center for Applied Economics Research, vol. 30(2), July.
    19. Hua Gong, 2022. "The Effect of the Crowd on Home Bias: Evidence from NBA Games During the COVID-19 Pandemic," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 23(7), pages 950-975, October.
    20. Dmitry Dagaev & Sofia Paklina & J. James Reade & Carl Singleton, 2024. "The Iron Curtain and Referee Bias in International Football," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 25(1), pages 126-151, January.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing
    • L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism
    • Z22 - Other Special Topics - - Sports Economics - - - Labor Issues

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:44:y:2026:i:2:p:380-393. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/weaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.