IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jospec/v15y2014i5p541-558.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Napoleon Complex

Author

Listed:
  • Paul Gift
  • Ryan M. Rodenberg

Abstract

Given the vast number of observations in a transparent environment, the interaction between players and referees in the National Basketball Association (NBA) provides a real-world laboratory that allows for observation and testing of implicit height-based biases (the so-called “Napoleon Complex†). Controlling for a plethora of referee-specific characteristics and including 4,463 regular season games from 2008 to 2012, we find that (i) more personal fouls are called when a relatively shorter three-person officiating crew is working and (ii) no more or fewer fouls are called when games involve relatively taller players. Such biases are probably not large enough to impact game outcomes but could affect gambling markets. Our findings support the conclusion that relatively shorter NBA referees officiate basketball games differently than their taller peers. The analysis spotlights an oft-suggested but rarely studied bias in a workplace where employees are heavily scrutinized and monitored.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Gift & Ryan M. Rodenberg, 2014. "Napoleon Complex," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 15(5), pages 541-558, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jospec:v:15:y:2014:i:5:p:541-558
    DOI: 10.1177/1527002514535168
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1527002514535168
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1527002514535168?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. Sutter, Matthias & Kocher, Martin G., 2004. "Favoritism of agents - The case of referees' home bias," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 461-469, August.
    2. van Quaquebeke, N. & Giessner, S.R., 2010. "How Embodied Cognitions Affect Judgments: Height-Related Attribution Bias in Football Foul Calls," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2010-006-ORG, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    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. Eric Zitzewitz, 2014. "Does Transparency Reduce Favoritism and Corruption? Evidence From the Reform of Figure Skating Judging," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 15(1), pages 3-30, February.
    5. 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.
    6. Zimmer Timothy & Kuethe Todd H, 2009. "Testing for Bias and Manipulation in the National Basketball Association Playoffs," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 5(3), pages 1-13, July.
    7. Kevin Mongeon & Neil Longley, 2013. "A methodology for identifying the impacted groups in referee discrimination studies," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(5), pages 416-419, March.
    8. Marianne Bertrand & Dolly Chugh & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2005. "Implicit Discrimination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 94-98, May.
    9. Edoardo Gallo & Thomas Grund & J. James Reade, 2013. "Punishing the Foreigner: Implicit Discrimination in the Premier League Based on Oppositional Identity," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 75(1), pages 136-156, February.
    10. N. Gregory Mankiw & Matthew Weinzierl, 2010. "The Optimal Taxation of Height: A Case Study of Utilitarian Income Redistribution," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 155-176, February.
    11. Rodenberg Ryan, 2011. "Perception ? Reality: Analyzing Specific Allegations of NBA Referee Bias," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 7(2), pages 1-13, May.
    12. Eric Zitzewitz, 2006. "Nationalism in Winter Sports Judging and Its Lessons for Organizational Decision Making," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(1), pages 67-99, March.
    13. Larsen Tim & Price Joe & Wolfers Justin, 2008. "Racial Bias in the NBA: Implications in Betting Markets," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 4(2), pages 1-21, April.
    14. Anne Case & Christina Paxson, 2008. "Stature and Status: Height, Ability, and Labor Market Outcomes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(3), pages 499-532, June.
    15. 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.
    16. T. Paul Schultz, 2002. "Wage Gains Associated with Height as a Form of Health Human Capital," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 349-353, May.
    17. Joseph Price & Marc Remer & Daniel F. Stone, 2012. "Subperfect Game: Profitable Biases of NBA Referees," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(1), pages 271-300, March.
    18. Joseph Price & Justin Wolfers, 2012. "Biased Referees?: Reconciling Results With The Nba'S Analysis," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 30(3), pages 320-328, July.
    19. Todd D. Kendall, 2008. "Celebrity Misbehavior in the NBA," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 9(3), pages 231-249, June.
    20. Thomas J. Dohmen, 2008. "The Influence Of Social Forces: Evidence From The Behavior Of Football Referees," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 46(3), pages 411-424, July.
    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. Michael J. Lopez, 2016. "Persuaded Under Pressure: Evidence From The National Football League," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(4), pages 1763-1773, October.
    2. Rhett Brymer & Ryan M. Rodenberg & Huimiao Zheng & Tim R. Holcomb, 2021. "College Football Referee Bias and Sports Betting Impact," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 91-106, January.

    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. Ryan Rodenberg, 2013. "Employee Discipline And Basketball Referees: A Prediction Market Approach," Journal of Prediction Markets, University of Buckingham Press, vol. 7(2), pages 43-54.
    2. Rhett Brymer & Ryan M. Rodenberg & Huimiao Zheng & Tim R. Holcomb, 2021. "College Football Referee Bias and Sports Betting Impact," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 91-106, January.
    3. António Osório, 2020. "Performance Evaluation: Subjectivity, Bias and Judgment Style in Sport," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 29(4), pages 655-678, August.
    4. Thomas Dohmen & Jan Sauermann, 2016. "Referee Bias," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 679-695, September.
    5. Paul Bose & Eberhard Feess & Helge Mueller, 2022. "Favoritism towards High-Status Clubs: Evidence from German Soccer," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 38(2), pages 422-478.
    6. Devin G. Pope & Joseph Price & Justin Wolfers, 2018. "Awareness Reduces Racial Bias," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(11), pages 4988-4995, November.
    7. Bryson R. Pope & Nolan G. Pope, 2015. "Own-Nationality Bias: Evidence From Uefa Champions League Football Referees," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 53(2), pages 1292-1304, April.
    8. Eric Zitzewitz, 2014. "Does Transparency Reduce Favoritism and Corruption? Evidence From the Reform of Figure Skating Judging," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 15(1), pages 3-30, February.
    9. Alex Krumer & Felix Otto & Tim Pawlowski, 2022. "Nationalistic bias among international experts: evidence from professional ski jumping," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 124(1), pages 278-300, January.
    10. Reilly, Barry & Witt, Robert, 2011. "Disciplinary sanctions in English Premiership Football: Is there a racial dimension?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 360-370, June.
    11. Hlasny, V. & Kolaric, S., 2015. "Catch Me If You Can - Referee–Team Relationships and Disciplinary Cautions in Football," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 74994, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    12. 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).
    13. Ulrike Holder & Thomas Ehrmann & Arne König, 2022. "Monitoring experts: insights from the introduction of video assistant referee (VAR) in elite football," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 92(2), pages 285-308, February.
    14. Andrea Albanese & Stijn Baert & Olivier Verstraeten, 2020. "Twelve eyes see more than eight. Referee bias and the introduction of additional assistant referees in soccer," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(2), pages 1-15, February.
    15. Dohmen, Thomas, 2014. "Behavioral labor economics: Advances and future directions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 71-85.
    16. Vladimir Hlasny & Sascha Kolaric, 2017. "Catch Me If You Can," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 18(6), pages 560-591, August.
    17. Pettersson-Lidbom, Per & Priks, Mikael, 2010. "Behavior under social pressure: Empty Italian stadiums and referee bias," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 212-214, August.
    18. Scott Tainsky & Brian M. Mills & Jason A. Winfree, 2015. "Further Examination of Potential Discrimination Among MLB Umpires," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 16(4), pages 353-374, May.
    19. Wen‐Jhan Jane, 2022. "Choking or excelling under pressure: Evidence of the causal effect of audience size on performance," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(1), pages 329-357, January.
    20. Faltings, Richard & Krumer, Alex & Lechner, Michael, 2019. "Rot-Jaune-Verde. Language and Favoritism: Evidence from Swiss Soccer," Economics Working Paper Series 1915, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.

    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:sae:jospec:v:15:y:2014:i:5:p:541-558. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.