IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp18050.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Soccer’s Record on the Road: The Effect of Late-Night Sporting Events on Fatal Car Crashes

Author

Listed:
  • Flynn, James

    (Miami University)

  • Meyers-Richter, Noah

    (Miami University)

  • Nencka, Peter

    (Miami University)

Abstract

Sleep deprivation imposes significant public health and economic burdens. While researchers studying events like daylight saving time have quantified the impacts of population-wide sleep shifts, less is known about the consequences of acute, voluntary, and recreation-driven sleep loss. This paper investigates this gap by studying the 2002 FIFA World Cup, hosted in South Korea and Japan. The extreme time difference meant that US-based fans sacrificed significant sleep to watch live matches. We track fatal car accidents in areas with large German populations on days when the German national team played early morning games. Areas with greater than 30% German heritage experienced increases in fatal car accidents of 35% relative to control areas after German games. The effects are dose-dependent and rise as the share of the German population increases. Our results are larger for crucial tournament games and non-alcohol-related incidents, consistent with sleep-deprived driving. Effects are driven by male drivers, mirroring World Cup viewer demographics. Placebo tests using the 2006 World Cup, where no games were played during normal U.S. sleeping hours, confirm that sleep disruption, not the sporting event itself, drives our findings.

Suggested Citation

  • Flynn, James & Meyers-Richter, Noah & Nencka, Peter, 2025. "Soccer’s Record on the Road: The Effect of Late-Night Sporting Events on Fatal Car Crashes," IZA Discussion Papers 18050, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18050
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp18050.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Costa-Font, Joan & Fleche, Sarah & Pagan, Ricardo, 2024. "The labour market returns to sleep," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    2. Costa-Font, Joan & Flèche, Sarah, 2020. "Child sleep and mother labour market outcomes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    3. Austin C. Smith, 2016. "Spring Forward at Your Own Risk: Daylight Saving Time and Fatal Vehicle Crashes," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(2), pages 65-91, April.
    4. Jennifer A. Heissel & Samuel Norris, 2018. "Rise and Shine: The Effect of School Start Times on Academic Performance from Childhood through Puberty," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 53(4), pages 957-992.
    5. Matthew Gibson & Jeffrey Shrader, 2018. "Time Use and Labor Productivity: The Returns to Sleep," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(5), pages 783-798, December.
    6. Biddle, Jeff E & Hamermesh, Daniel S, 1990. "Sleep and the Allocation of Time," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 922-943, October.
    7. Andres, Leander & Fabel, Marc & Rainer, Helmut, 2023. "How much violence does football hooliganism cause?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 225(C).
    8. Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham & Isaac Sorkin & Henry Swift, 2020. "Bartik Instruments: What, When, Why, and How," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(8), pages 2586-2624, August.
    9. Kajitani, Shinya, 2021. "The return of sleep," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    10. Scott E. Carrell & Teny Maghakian & James E. West, 2011. "A's from Zzzz's? The Causal Effect of School Start Time on the Academic Achievement of Adolescents," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 62-81, August.
    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. Nguyen, Ha Trong & Zubrick, Stephen R. & Mitrou, Francis, 2024. "The effects of sleep duration on child health and development," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 35-51.
    2. Joan Costa‐Font & Sarah Fleche & Ricardo Pagan, 2024. "The welfare effects of time reallocation: evidence from Daylight Saving Time," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 91(362), pages 547-568, April.
    3. Costa-Font, Joan & Fleche, Sarah & Pagan, Ricardo, 2024. "The labour market returns to sleep," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    4. Dou, Jialu & Gihleb, Rania & Giuntella, Osea & Lonsky, Jakub, 2025. "Breaking the Early Bell: Lessons from the First Statewide Mandate on School Start Times," IZA Discussion Papers 17930, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Xu, Zhicheng & Zhao, Qingqi, 2025. "Sunrise, sunset, and adverse effects of the inflexible schedule on the health of students: Evidence from China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 2180-2191.
    6. Chadi, Cornelia, 2023. "Too stressed to sleep? Downsizing, job insecurity and sleep behavior," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    7. Jin, Lawrence & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2020. "Sleep, health, and human capital: Evidence from daylight saving time," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 174-192.
    8. Bertoni, Marco & Meli, Francesca & Rocco, Lorenzo, 2025. "Rest Assured. The Effects of Sleep on Labor Productivity," IZA Discussion Papers 17618, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Billari, Francesco C. & Giuntella, Osea & Stella, Luca, 2018. "Broadband internet, digital temptations, and sleep," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 58-76.
    10. Osea Giuntella & Wei Han & Fabrizio Mazzonna, 2017. "Circadian Rhythms, Sleep, and Cognitive Skills: Evidence From an Unsleeping Giant," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(5), pages 1715-1742, October.
    11. Costa-Font, Joan & Flèche, Sarah, 2020. "Child sleep and mother labour market outcomes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    12. Depalo, Domenico, 2023. "Should the Daylight Saving Time be abolished? Evidence from work accidents in Italy," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    13. Hajdu, Tamás, 2024. "Temperature exposure and sleep duration: Evidence from time use surveys," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    14. Roberto Gillmore, 2025. "Daylight Saving Time and Automobile Accidents: Evidence From Chile," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(5), pages 880-931, May.
    15. Joan Costa-Font, 2022. "Incentivizing sleep?," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 502-502, November.
    16. Bigler, Patrick & Janzen, Benedikt, 2024. "Too hot to sleep," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    17. Giuntella, Osea & Mazzonna, Fabrizio, 2019. "Sunset time and the economic effects of social jetlag: evidence from US time zone borders," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 210-226.
    18. Dickinson, Andrew & Waddell, Glen R., 2024. "Productivity losses in the transition to Daylight Saving Time: Evidence from hourly GitHub activity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 227(C).
    19. Kulshreshtha, Shobhit & Bhattacharya, Leena & Ayyagari, Padmaja, 2025. "Later Sunset, Better Health?," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1648, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    20. Conlin, Andrew & Nerg, Iiro & Ala-Mursula, Leena & Räihä, Tapio & Korhonen, Marko, 2023. "The association between chronotype and wages at mid-age," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • R41 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion; Travel Time; Safety and Accidents; Transportation Noise
    • D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp18050. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.