IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/17732.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

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

Author

Listed:
  • 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
    Note: LE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w17732.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephen Gordon & Michel Truchon, 2008. "Social choice, optimal inference and figure skating," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 30(2), pages 265-284, February.
    2. Green, Edward J & Porter, Robert H, 1984. "Noncooperative Collusion under Imperfect Price Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(1), pages 87-100, 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. Emerson, John W. & Arnold, Taylor B., 2011. "Statistical Sleuthing by Leveraging Human Nature: A Study of Olympic Figure Skating," The American Statistician, American Statistical Association, vol. 65(3), pages 143-148.
    6. Mitchell A. Petersen, 2009. "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 435-480, January.
    7. Davis, Gerald F. & Kim, E. Han, 2007. "Business ties and proxy voting by mutual funds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 552-570, August.
    8. Mark Duggan & Steven D. Levitt, 2002. "Winning Isn't Everything: Corruption in Sumo Wrestling," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1594-1605, December.
    9. 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.
    10. Wu S.S. & Yang M.C.K., 2004. "Evaluation of the Current Decision Rule in Figure Skating and Possible Improvements," The American Statistician, American Statistical Association, vol. 58, pages 46-54, February.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. Justin Wolfers, 2006. "Point Shaving: Corruption in NCAA Basketball," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 279-283, May.
    14. Dohmen, Thomas, 2005. "Social Pressure Influences Decisions of Individuals: Evidence from the Behavior of Football Referees," IZA Discussion Papers 1595, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Prendergast, Canice, 1993. "A Theory of "Yes Men."," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(4), pages 757-770, September.
    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. 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.

    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. António Osório, 2020. "Performance Evaluation: Subjectivity, Bias and Judgment Style in Sport," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 29(4), pages 655-678, August.
    2. Thomas Dohmen & Jan Sauermann, 2016. "Referee Bias," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 679-695, September.
    3. 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.
    4. Paul Gift & Ryan M. Rodenberg, 2014. "Napoleon Complex," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 15(5), pages 541-558, October.
    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. 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).
    7. Devin G. Pope & Joseph Price & Justin Wolfers, 2018. "Awareness Reduces Racial Bias," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(11), pages 4988-4995, November.
    8. Hillary N. Morgan & Kurt W. Rotthoff, 2014. "The Harder The Task, The Higher The Score: Findings Of A Difficulty Bias," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(3), pages 1014-1026, July.
    9. Brian M. Mills, 2017. "Policy Changes In Major League Baseball: Improved Agent Behavior And Ancillary Productivity Outcomes," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(2), pages 1104-1118, April.
    10. Joseph Price & Brian P. Soebbing & David Berri & Brad R. Humphreys, 2010. "Tournament Incentives, League Policy, and NBA Team Performance Revisited," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 11(2), pages 117-135, April.
    11. 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.
    12. Fornwagner, Helena, 2019. "Incentives to lose revisited: The NHL and its tournament incentives," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 75(PB).
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. Mike Hsu, 2024. "Umpire Home Bias in Major League Baseball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 25(4), pages 423-442, May.
    16. Helena Fornwagner, 2017. "Incentives to lose revisited: The NHL and its tournament incentives," Working Papers 2017-07, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    17. Jungmin Lee, 2008. "Outlier Aversion in Subjective Evaluation," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 9(2), pages 141-159, April.
    18. Moul, Charles C. & Nye, John V.C., 2009. "Did the Soviets collude? A statistical analysis of championship chess 1940-1978," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 70(1-2), pages 10-21, May.
    19. Kerry L. Papps, 2020. "Sports at the vanguard of labor market policy," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 481-481, October.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

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

    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:nbr:nberwo:17732. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.