by Declan Jordan
Ar a conference in Aberystwyth last week I got talking about sports economics, as seems to be happening a lot, with a colleague from the University of Strathclyde, Stuart McIntyre. He told me about a very interesting paper by some of his colleagues in Strathclyde that considers the relationship between football and domestic violence. The working paper by Alex Dickson, Colin Jennings and Gary Koop uses a novel dataset to examine this relationship - which has a strong empirical basis from previous studies.
The literature has found a relationship between sporting events and reported incidents of domestic violence. More recently these have shown that pre-match expectations are important in explaining this relationship.
Using data from Strathclyde Police on reported incidents of domestic violence, results from Scottish Premier League games and pre-match betting odds as a predictor of likely outcomes, the paper finds that the spike in reported domestic violence around Old Firm games (games between Celtic and Rangers) is similar in magnitude to the levels of domestic violence reported at Christmas and the New Year. They find that there is little evidence to support the argument that 'upset losses' are associated with higher levels of reported domestic violence, perhaps because the similar standing of Celtic and Rangers is such that particularly upsetting losses (in the context of being against the odds) are less likely to occur. Upset results matter where matches are more important, such as where the matches occur later in the league season.
The authors point out that since Rangers went into liquidation and their successors were elected to the lowest (third) division in Scotland for the 2012/13 season there have not been any Old Firm clashes. This provides much welcome relief for those subjected to domestic violence as a result of this game. It also provides a natural experiment to further explore the question in this paper.
The literature has found a relationship between sporting events and reported incidents of domestic violence. More recently these have shown that pre-match expectations are important in explaining this relationship.
Using data from Strathclyde Police on reported incidents of domestic violence, results from Scottish Premier League games and pre-match betting odds as a predictor of likely outcomes, the paper finds that the spike in reported domestic violence around Old Firm games (games between Celtic and Rangers) is similar in magnitude to the levels of domestic violence reported at Christmas and the New Year. They find that there is little evidence to support the argument that 'upset losses' are associated with higher levels of reported domestic violence, perhaps because the similar standing of Celtic and Rangers is such that particularly upsetting losses (in the context of being against the odds) are less likely to occur. Upset results matter where matches are more important, such as where the matches occur later in the league season.
The authors point out that since Rangers went into liquidation and their successors were elected to the lowest (third) division in Scotland for the 2012/13 season there have not been any Old Firm clashes. This provides much welcome relief for those subjected to domestic violence as a result of this game. It also provides a natural experiment to further explore the question in this paper.
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