Favoritism under multiple sources of social pressure
Gábor Békés, Endre Borza, Márton Fleck
In competitive situations between organizations, #favoritism occurs when a decision-maker unfairly benefits one party over another, in contexts like promotions or fund allocations. One source of favoritism is social pressure in the form of desire of conformity or persuasion.
This had been known regarding #football referees: they add more extratime when the home team needs it. In the past, it was thought to stem from crowds, loud fans pressuring refeeres. Our new #research shows this is not the case.
Using a new event by event dataset on 11k close games over 10 years in the top 5 European football leagues we show referee bias remained even when games were played in a closed stadium during #covid in 2020 and 2021. Instead of crowds, influential teams (think rich, successful, or star studded) exert the pressure. It is nevertheless social pressure, as we see no evidence on corruption.
These results have two consequences. On a broad level, we show favoritism may come from multiple sources. Thus, precisely identifying the mechanism is important. As for football, unlike crowds, our shown mechanism helps influential teams and thus, adversely affects competitive balance.
