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Does Transparency Reduce Favoritism and Corruption? Evidence from the Reform of Figure Skating Judging

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  • Eric Zitzewitz

Abstract

Transparency is usually thought to reduce favoritism and corruption by facilitating monitoring by outsiders, but there is concern it can have the perverse effect of facilitating collusion by insiders. In response to vote trading scandals in the 1998 and 2002 Olympics, the International Skating Union (ISU) introduced a number of changes to its judging system, including obscuring which judge issued which mark. The stated intent was to disrupt collusion by groups of judges, but this change also frustrates most attempts by outsiders to monitor judge behavior. I find that the "compatriot-judge effect", which aggregates favoritism (nationalistic bias from own-country judges) and corruption (vote trading), actually increased slightly after the reforms.

Suggested Citation

  • Eric Zitzewitz, 2012. "Does Transparency Reduce Favoritism and Corruption? Evidence from the Reform of Figure Skating Judging," NBER Working Papers 17732, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17732
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    Cited by:

    1. Krisztina Kis-Katos & Günther G. Schulze, 2013. "Corruption in Southeast Asia: a survey of recent research," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 27(1), pages 79-109, May.
    2. Michael Babington & Sebastian J. Goerg & Carl Kitchens, 2020. "Do Tournaments With Superstars Encourage or Discourage Competition?," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(1), pages 44-63, January.
    3. Devin G. Pope & Joseph Price & Justin Wolfers, 2018. "Awareness Reduces Racial Bias," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(11), pages 4988-4995, November.
    4. Ho Fai Chan & David A. Savage & Benno Torgler, 2021. "Sport as a Behavioral Economics Lab," CREMA Working Paper Series 2021-20, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    5. António Osório, 2020. "Performance Evaluation: Subjectivity, Bias and Judgment Style in Sport," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 29(4), pages 655-678, August.
    6. 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.
    7. Leonid Krasnozhon & John Levendis, 2018. "Weekend racer: cheating and self-governance in road racing," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 75-90, February.
    8. Candon Johnson & Bryan C. McCannon, 2022. "Athletics and Admissions: The Impact of the Penn State Football Scandal on Student Quality," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 23(2), pages 200-221, February.
    9. Thomas Dohmen & Jan Sauermann, 2016. "Referee Bias," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 679-695, September.
    10. Andreas Goetsch & Christian Salzmann, 2018. "The Role of Ex Post Audits in Doping Enforcement," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(7), pages 960-976, October.
    11. Thrane, Christer, 2025. "Nationalistic bias in experts’ player ratings in football," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 247(C).
    12. Lamar Pierce & Daniel C. Snow & Andrew McAfee, 2015. "Cleaning House: The Impact of Information Technology Monitoring on Employee Theft and Productivity," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(10), pages 2299-2319, October.
    13. Paul Gift & Ryan M. Rodenberg, 2014. "Napoleon Complex," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 15(5), pages 541-558, October.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty

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