By John Considine
The FIFA World Cup playoff between Ireland and Czechia will probably be remembered for the penalty kicks. Only a few days after the event, it is relatively easy to remember that Czechia won the contest on a penalty shootout. It is also relatively easy to recall that Ireland scored a penalty kick to go 0-1 ahead in the game and that Czechia scored a penalty kick to narrow the deficit to 1-2 (only minutes after Ireland had taken a two-goal lead).
The in-game Czechia penalty was awarded after an Irish player pulled the jersey of an opponent in the penalty area. It is difficult to argue with the decision of the referee – VAR did not intervene to suggest the referee made an obvious error. Why did the Irish player do it? We don’t know. But we can speculate. When we do so we usually have some benchmark behaviour in mind and we compare the actual behaviour to this behaviour. What would Jesus have done? What would Homo Economicus (HE) have done?
At the moment of the decision, what would HE (this god-like creature) have based the decision on? HE would know the probability of the Czechia player scoring a goal if HE does not pull the jersey. HE would know the probability of being seen pulling the jersey, the probability of the referee deciding it is enough for a penalty, the probability of a VAR intervention, the probability of the Czechia player converting the penalty given the quality of the Irish goalkeeper in such situations, and so forth. With this information HE would calculate the expected outcomes of the various courses of action and HE would optimise. (For the moment, let us ignore the possibility that the individual’s costs and benefits are not aligned with those of the team.)
Behavioural economists might suggest that the Irish player, Ryan Manning, did not decide like Homo Economicus (and, therefore, HE is a poor guide for economic thinking). Manning did not have the luxury of being able to stop time. Daniel Kahneman might suggest that Manning was thinking fast rather than slow? Behavioural economists would suggest that his decision was framed by the context. The passage of play began with a corner kick where the blind-eye of the referees is like that used by financial regulators before the Great Recession. Manning, and others, were using their hands to restrain opponents in the seconds before the award of the penalty. At what millisecond did the application of the rules revert to “normal”? Regardless, the penalty was awarded and it then became an interaction between the Irish goalkeeper and the Czechia penalty kicker.
Economists who use Homo Economicus to guide their thinking are more at home when it comes to the strategic interaction between the penalty taker and the goalkeeper. It is possible to model it with a 2x2 payoff matrix for a simultaneous game. Two players: Keeper and Kicker. Two strategies: Left and Right. The equilibrium occurs where players mix their strategies. Where the kicker and keeper are HEs then their optimal behaviour is described as minimax.
It is, probably, not really a simultaneous game (as explained here previously) but that has not stopped economists and psychologists using the data to confirm their view of humans. A few economists linked to Chicago have shown that kickers and keepers make good decisions – not unlike Homo Economicus. The psychologist Michael Bar-Eli uses a 3x3 division of the scoring space to show that there is a bias in some of the decisions. The psychologists might be unemployed in a world populated by Homo Economicus.
An interesting aspect of the data is the difference between in-game penalties and those in a penalty shootout. For penalty shootouts the evidence suggests that, on balance, a team is better off shooting first. The captain who wins the coin toss will usually select to shoot first. Where they have decided to shoot second, there is a greater chance that the captain was a goalkeeper. Is this a misalignment of term and individual incentives? Possibly. Keepers are rarely blamed for a penalty shootout loss but are given credit for saves. It is difficult for a kicker to get away from being seen as an individual with responsibility – even if it starts with each team taking 5 penalties. Score the winning penalty and you will be remembered forever, miss the critical penalty and they will never forget you.
The in-game Czechia penalty was awarded after an Irish player pulled the jersey of an opponent in the penalty area. It is difficult to argue with the decision of the referee – VAR did not intervene to suggest the referee made an obvious error. Why did the Irish player do it? We don’t know. But we can speculate. When we do so we usually have some benchmark behaviour in mind and we compare the actual behaviour to this behaviour. What would Jesus have done? What would Homo Economicus (HE) have done?
At the moment of the decision, what would HE (this god-like creature) have based the decision on? HE would know the probability of the Czechia player scoring a goal if HE does not pull the jersey. HE would know the probability of being seen pulling the jersey, the probability of the referee deciding it is enough for a penalty, the probability of a VAR intervention, the probability of the Czechia player converting the penalty given the quality of the Irish goalkeeper in such situations, and so forth. With this information HE would calculate the expected outcomes of the various courses of action and HE would optimise. (For the moment, let us ignore the possibility that the individual’s costs and benefits are not aligned with those of the team.)
Behavioural economists might suggest that the Irish player, Ryan Manning, did not decide like Homo Economicus (and, therefore, HE is a poor guide for economic thinking). Manning did not have the luxury of being able to stop time. Daniel Kahneman might suggest that Manning was thinking fast rather than slow? Behavioural economists would suggest that his decision was framed by the context. The passage of play began with a corner kick where the blind-eye of the referees is like that used by financial regulators before the Great Recession. Manning, and others, were using their hands to restrain opponents in the seconds before the award of the penalty. At what millisecond did the application of the rules revert to “normal”? Regardless, the penalty was awarded and it then became an interaction between the Irish goalkeeper and the Czechia penalty kicker.
Economists who use Homo Economicus to guide their thinking are more at home when it comes to the strategic interaction between the penalty taker and the goalkeeper. It is possible to model it with a 2x2 payoff matrix for a simultaneous game. Two players: Keeper and Kicker. Two strategies: Left and Right. The equilibrium occurs where players mix their strategies. Where the kicker and keeper are HEs then their optimal behaviour is described as minimax.
It is, probably, not really a simultaneous game (as explained here previously) but that has not stopped economists and psychologists using the data to confirm their view of humans. A few economists linked to Chicago have shown that kickers and keepers make good decisions – not unlike Homo Economicus. The psychologist Michael Bar-Eli uses a 3x3 division of the scoring space to show that there is a bias in some of the decisions. The psychologists might be unemployed in a world populated by Homo Economicus.
An interesting aspect of the data is the difference between in-game penalties and those in a penalty shootout. For penalty shootouts the evidence suggests that, on balance, a team is better off shooting first. The captain who wins the coin toss will usually select to shoot first. Where they have decided to shoot second, there is a greater chance that the captain was a goalkeeper. Is this a misalignment of term and individual incentives? Possibly. Keepers are rarely blamed for a penalty shootout loss but are given credit for saves. It is difficult for a kicker to get away from being seen as an individual with responsibility – even if it starts with each team taking 5 penalties. Score the winning penalty and you will be remembered forever, miss the critical penalty and they will never forget you.
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