IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/yg6ap_v1.html

Revisiting Racial Bias in NBA Refereeing: First So Back, Then So Over

Author

Listed:
  • Pipke, David

Abstract

Influential studies by Price and Wolfers (2010) and Pope et al. (2018) document racial bias among NBA referees and suggest that heightened awareness can reduce it. Using an independently assembled player–game dataset for 1988–2025 that links box scores to referee crews, I replicate the original findings and extend them. Racial bias is present in 1988–2007 and largely absent in 2007–2014, reemerges in 2015–2019, and disappears again from 2020 onward. Merging games to county–day measures of Black Lives Matter protest activity, I find lower bias when local protest intensity is higher. These associations are consistent with awareness-driven reductions in discrimination.

Suggested Citation

  • Pipke, David, 2025. "Revisiting Racial Bias in NBA Refereeing: First So Back, Then So Over," SocArXiv yg6ap_v1, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:yg6ap_v1
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/yg6ap_v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/68da4f8c11b9e1389e432b50/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/yg6ap_v1?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. Erzo F. P. Luttmer, 2001. "Group Loyalty and the Taste for Redistribution," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(3), pages 500-528, June.
    2. Alberto Alesina & Armando Miano & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2023. "Immigration and Redistribution," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(1), pages 1-39.
    3. Naci Mocan & Eric Osborne-Christenson, 2024. "In-Group Favoritism and Peer Effects in Wrongful Acquittals: National Basketball Association Referees as Judges," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67(4), pages 731-766.
    4. Jennifer L. Doleac & Luke C.D. Stein, 2013. "The Visible Hand: Race and Online Market Outcomes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 123(11), pages 469-492, November.
    5. Benjamin Edelman & Michael Luca & Dan Svirsky, 2017. "Racial Discrimination in the Sharing Economy: Evidence from a Field Experiment," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 1-22, April.
    6. 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.
    7. Fong, Christina M. & Luttmer, Erzo F.P., 2011. "Do fairness and race matter in generosity? Evidence from a nationally representative charity experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(5), pages 372-394.
    8. Scoppa, Vincenzo, 2021. "Social pressure in the stadiums: Do agents change behavior without crowd support?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    9. Roland G. Fryer Jr., 2019. "An Empirical Analysis of Racial Differences in Police Use of Force," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(3), pages 1210-1261.
    10. Phelps, Edmund S, 1972. "The Statistical Theory of Racism and Sexism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(4), pages 659-661, September.
    11. 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.
    12. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 991-1013, September.
    13. Kai Fischer & Justus Haucap, 2021. "Does Crowd Support Drive the Home Advantage in Professional Football? Evidence from German Ghost Games during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 22(8), pages 982-1008, December.
    14. Dohmen, Thomas J., 2008. "Do professionals choke under pressure?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 65(3-4), pages 636-653, March.
    15. Stantcheva, Stefanie & Ferroni, Matteo, 2021. "Perceptions of Racial Gaps, their Causes, and Ways to Reduce Them," CEPR Discussion Papers 16529, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Cetre, Sophie & Algan, Yann & Grimalda, Gianluca & Murtin, Fabrice & Pipke, David & Putterman, Louis & Schmidt, Ulrich & Siegerink, Vincent, 2024. "Ethnic bias, economic achievement and trust between large ethnic groups: A study in Germany and the U.S," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 224(C), pages 996-1021.
    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. Cetre, Sophie & Algan, Yann & Grimalda, Gianluca & Murtin, Fabrice & Pipke, David & Putterman, Louis & Schmidt, Ulrich & Siegerink, Vincent, 2024. "Ethnic bias, economic achievement and trust between large ethnic groups: A study in Germany and the U.S," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 224(C), pages 996-1021.
    2. Mujcic, Redzo & Frijters, Paul, 2013. "Still Not Allowed on the Bus: It Matters If You're Black or White!," IZA Discussion Papers 7300, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Kevin Lang & Ariella Kahn-Lang Spitzer, 2020. "Race Discrimination: An Economic Perspective," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 68-89, Spring.
    4. Bryson, Alex & Chevalier, Arnaud, 2015. "Is there a taste for racial discrimination amongst employers?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 51-63.
    5. Siddique, Abu & Vlassopoulos, Michael & Zenou, Yves, 2023. "Market competition and discrimination," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    6. Tjaden, Jasper Dag & Schwemmer, Carsten & Khadjavi, Menusch, 2018. "Ride with Me - Ethnic Discrimination, Social Markets and the Sharing Economy," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 34(4), pages 418-432.
    7. Yulia Evsyukova & Felix Rusche & Wladislaw Mill, 2025. "LinkedOut? A Field Experiment on Discrimination in Job Network Formation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 140(1), pages 283-334.
    8. Nunley, John M. & Owens, Mark F. & Howard, R. Stephen, 2011. "The effects of information and competition on racial discrimination: Evidence from a field experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 670-679.
    9. Elisa Baldazzi & Pietro Biroli & Marina Della Giusta & Florent Dubois, 2025. "Seeing stereotypes," IFS Working Papers W25/46, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    10. Letian Zhang, 2019. "Who Loses When a Team Wins? Better Performance Increases Racial Bias," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(1), pages 40-50, February.
    11. Yang, Xiaoliang & Zhou, Peng, 2025. "Unveiling citation bias in economics: Taste-based discrimination against Chinese-authored papers," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    12. Raymond Fisman & Daniel Paravisini & Vikrant Vig, 2017. "Cultural Proximity and Loan Outcomes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(2), pages 457-492, February.
    13. Matthieu Manant & Serge Pajak & Nicolas Soulié, 2019. "Can social media lead to labor market discrimination? Evidence from a field experiment," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 225-246, April.
    14. Broockman, David E. & Soltas, Evan J., 2020. "A natural experiment on discrimination in elections," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    15. Jesper Akesson & Robert W. Hahn & Robert D. Metcalfe & Itzhak Rasooly, 2022. "Race and Redistribution in the United States: An Experimental Analysis," NBER Working Papers 30426, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Gagnon, Nickolas & Nosenzo, Daniele, 2025. "Discrimination Preferences," EconStor Preprints 323979, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    17. Schütt, Christoph & Pipke, David & Detlefsen, Lena & Grimalda, Gianluca, 2022. "Does ethnic heterogeneity decrease workers' effort in the presence of income redistribution? An experimental analysis," Kiel Working Papers 2228, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    18. repec:osf:socarx:9pr34_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. J. Aislinn Bohren & Alex Imas & Michael Rosenberg, 2019. "The Dynamics of Discrimination: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(10), pages 3395-3436, October.
    20. Patrick Bayer & Kerwin Kofi Charles & Ellora Derenoncourt, 2025. "Racial Inequality in the Labor Market," Working Papers 343, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    21. Igan, Deniz & Pinheiro, Marcelo & Smith, John, 2012. "Racial biases and market outcomes: "White men can't jump," but would you bet on it?," MPRA Paper 36069, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    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:osf:socarx:yg6ap_v1. 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: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .

    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.