By John Considine
While following some threads on Google Scholar, I encountered a nice SSRN paper by Leo Morabito and Vincenzo Scoppa. The paper examines decisions by referees from 21,400 soccer matches in major European leagues. Each game is divided into separate minute intervals to give 2,142,000 observations. While they say that they find "referees exhibit a strong preference for fairness", it is better to substitute the term "inequality aversion" for "fairness". This is more in keeping with both the title of their paper and the results.
It is worth repeating that the paper uses minute-by-minute commentary data. This facilitates a dynamic analysis of decisions based on the in-game situation. They have three major findings.
First, they find that referees are not inclined towards increasing the inequality in the award of penalties. For example, if the referee has awarded a penalty to one team then the probability of a second penalty to that team is reduced. This supports the work of Wolf Schwarz in the 2011 paper 'Compensating tendencies in penalty kick decisions of referees in professional football: Evidence from the German Bundesliga 1963-2006'. Compensating tendencies is similar inequality aversion.
Second, Morabito and Scoppa find that referees are not inclined towards increasing the inequality in the award of red and yellow cards. A second inequality aversion. One might suggest that it is "fair" that a player should get a red card if they deserve it.
Third, they find that referees are likely to increase injury time when there is an inequality in the score line compare to when the teams are level. A recent post on this blog (here) presented a picture from a paper published in Oxford Economic Papers. The picture clearly shows greater injury time, compared to a tied game, when either the home or away team is a goal behind.
It is worth repeating that the paper uses minute-by-minute commentary data. This facilitates a dynamic analysis of decisions based on the in-game situation. They have three major findings.
First, they find that referees are not inclined towards increasing the inequality in the award of penalties. For example, if the referee has awarded a penalty to one team then the probability of a second penalty to that team is reduced. This supports the work of Wolf Schwarz in the 2011 paper 'Compensating tendencies in penalty kick decisions of referees in professional football: Evidence from the German Bundesliga 1963-2006'. Compensating tendencies is similar inequality aversion.
Second, Morabito and Scoppa find that referees are not inclined towards increasing the inequality in the award of red and yellow cards. A second inequality aversion. One might suggest that it is "fair" that a player should get a red card if they deserve it.
Third, they find that referees are likely to increase injury time when there is an inequality in the score line compare to when the teams are level. A recent post on this blog (here) presented a picture from a paper published in Oxford Economic Papers. The picture clearly shows greater injury time, compared to a tied game, when either the home or away team is a goal behind.
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