IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormnsc/v60y2014i11p2619-2644.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Seeing Stars: Matthew Effects and Status Bias in Major League Baseball Umpiring

Author

Listed:
  • Jerry W. Kim

    (Graduate School of Business, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027)

  • Brayden G King

    (Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208)

Abstract

This paper tests the assumption that evaluators are biased to positively evaluate high-status individuals, irrespective of quality. Using unique data from Major League Baseball umpires' evaluation of pitch quality, which allow us to observe the difference in a pitch's objective quality and in its perceived quality as judged by the umpire, we show that umpires are more likely to overrecognize quality by expanding the strike zone, and less likely to underrecognize quality by missing pitches in the strike zone for high-status pitchers. Ambiguity and the pitcher's reputation as a “control pitcher” moderate the effect of status on umpire judgment. Furthermore, we show that umpire errors resulting from status bias lead to actual performance differences for the pitcher and team.Data, as supplemental material, are available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2014.1967 . This paper was accepted by Jesper Sørensen, organizations.

Suggested Citation

  • Jerry W. Kim & Brayden G King, 2014. "Seeing Stars: Matthew Effects and Status Bias in Major League Baseball Umpiring," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(11), pages 2619-2644, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:60:y:2014:i:11:p:2619-2644
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2014.1967
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2014.1967
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mnsc.2014.1967?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yates, Judith, 1985. "Discrimination in Lending," Working Papers 80, University of Sydney, School of Economics.
    2. Pierre Azoulay & Toby Stuart & Yanbo Wang, 2014. "Matthew: Effect or Fable?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(1), pages 92-109, January.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. Matthew Blackwell & Stefano Iacus & Gary King & Giuseppe Porro, 2009. "cem: Coarsened exact matching in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LLC, vol. 9(4), pages 524-546, December.
    6. Iacus, Stefano M. & King, Gary & Porro, Giuseppe, 2011. "Multivariate Matching Methods That Are Monotonic Imbalance Bounding," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 106(493), pages 345-361.
    7. Wei Zhao & Xueguang Zhou, 2011. "Status Inconsistency and Product Valuation in the California Wine Market," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(6), pages 1435-1448, December.
    8. David M. Waguespack & Olav Sorenson, 2011. "The Ratings Game: Asymmetry in Classification," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(3), pages 541-553, June.
    9. Timothy S. Simcoe & Dave M. Waguespack, 2011. "Status, Quality, and Attention: What's in a (Missing) Name?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(2), pages 274-290, February.
    10. Brian M. Mills, 2014. "Social Pressure at the Plate: Inequality Aversion, Status, and Mere Exposure," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(6), pages 387-403, September.
    11. Wesley David Sine & Scott Shane & Dante Di Gregorio, 2003. "The Halo Effect and Technology Licensing: The Influence of Institutional Prestige on the Licensing of University Inventions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(4), pages 478-496, April.
    12. Iacus, Stefano & King, Gary & Porro, Giuseppe, 2009. "cem: Software for Coarsened Exact Matching," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 30(i09).
    13. Podolny, Joel M & Phillips, Damon J, 1996. "The Dynamics of Organizational Status," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 5(2), pages 453-471.
    14. Iacus, Stefano M. & King, Gary & Porro, Giuseppe, 2012. "Causal Inference without Balance Checking: Coarsened Exact Matching," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 1-24, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Tristan L. Botelho & Marina Gertsberg, 2022. "The Disciplining Effect of Status: Evaluator Status Awards and Observed Gender Bias in Evaluations," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(7), pages 5311-5329, July.
    2. Cesare A.F. Riillo & Kai Jakobs, 2023. "Too many or too few Standards Setters? Evidence from the Performance of Firms engaged in Standardization," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 48(6), pages 2106-2131, December.
    3. Davidson Heath & Giorgo Sertsios, 2022. "Profitability and Financial Leverage: Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(11), pages 8386-8410, November.
    4. Yiwei Qian & Rodolfo M. Nayga & Michael R. Thomsen & Heather L. Rouse, 2016. "The Effect of the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program on Childhood Obesity," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 38(2), pages 260-275.
    5. Khanna, Rajat, 2023. "Passing the torch of knowledge: Star death, collaborative ties, and knowledge creation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(1).
    6. Augusto Cerqua & Guido Pellegrini, 2017. "Industrial policy evaluation in the presence of spillovers," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 49(3), pages 671-686, October.
    7. Ferrés, Daniel & Ormazabal, Gaizka & Povel, Paul & Sertsios, Giorgo, 2021. "Capital structure under collusion," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    8. Ravi Bapna & Alok Gupta & Gautam Ray & Shweta Singh, 2016. "Research Note —IT Outsourcing and the Impact of Advisors on Clients and Vendors," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 27(3), pages 636-647.
    9. Christopher F. Baum & Hans Lööf & Andreas Stephan & Klaus F. Zimmermann, 2024. "Estimating the Wage Premia of Refugee Immigrants: Lessons from Sweden," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 77(4), pages 562-597, August.
    10. Yuri Ostrovsky & Garnett Picot, 2021. "Innovation in immigrant-owned firms," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 57(4), pages 1857-1874, December.
    11. Clayton, Paige, 2024. "Mentored without incubation: Start-up survival, funding, and the role of entrepreneurial support organization services," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(4).
    12. Engberg, Erik & Halvarsson, Daniel & Tingvall, Patrik, 2017. "Direct and Indirect Effects of Private- and Government Sponsored Venture Capital," Ratio Working Papers 288, The Ratio Institute.
    13. Kotsogiannis, Christos & Salvadori, Luca & Karangwa, John & Mukamana, Theonille, 2024. "Do tax audits have a dynamic impact? Evidence from corporate income tax administrative data," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    14. Mamidi, Varsha & Marisetty, Vijaya B. & Thomas, Ewan Nikhil, 2021. "Clean energy transition and intertemporal socio-economic development: Evidence from an emerging market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    15. Cerqua, Augusto & Urwin, Peter & Thomson, Dave & Bibby, David, 2020. "Evaluation of education and training impacts for the unemployed: Challenges of new data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    16. Patrik Gustavsson Tingvall & Josefin Videnord, 2020. "Regional differences in effects of publicly sponsored R&D grants on SME performance," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 54(4), pages 951-969, April.
    17. Lindgren, Charlie & Li, Yujiao & Rudholm, Niklas, 2020. "Why do firms compete on price comparison websites? The impact on productivity, profits, and wages," HFI Working Papers 14, Institute of Retail Economics (Handelns Forskningsinstitut).
    18. Li Li & Jinjuan Yang & Shaoguo Zhai & Dan Li, 2022. "Determinants of Differences in Health Service Utilization between Older Rural-to-Urban Migrant Workers and Older Rural Residents: Evidence from a Decomposition Approach," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(10), pages 1-16, May.
    19. Avni, Omrit & Guetzkow, Joshua & Hasisi, Badi, 2024. "Bias in prosecutorial decision making: Bridging focal concerns & group threat," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    20. Patrick, Carlianne & Mothorpe, Christopher, 2017. "Demand for new cities: Property value capitalization of municipal incorporation," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 78-89.

    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:inm:ormnsc:v:60:y:2014:i:11:p:2619-2644. 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: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.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.