As well as offering a module in The Economics of Sport and Games (EC325) within its undergraduate programmes, the Department of Economics and its Economic Analysis Research Group (EARG) currently has an active research agenda in Sports Economics and related topics (see below). Dr James Reade and Dr Carl Singleton are also very interested in supervising PhD study in this area (see here for more information).
The Department’s Recent Research Papers in Sports Economics
The Demand for Sport
- “Stadium attendance demand during the COVID-19 crisis: Early empirical evidence from Belarus” (Applied Economics Letters, 2020)
- “Demand for Public Events in the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of European Football” (European Sport Management Quarterly, 2020)
- “European football after COVID-19” (Book chapter, 2020)
- “Football Attendance over the Centuries” (Working paper, 2020)
- “Daily Demand for Multiple-Day Events: Leicestershire Cricket in the post-war era” (Working paper, 2019)
Labour Markets and Sport
- “Extreme wages, performance and superstars in a market for footballers” (Industrial Relations, 2021)
- “Do high wage footballers play for high wage teams? The case of Major League Soccer” (International Journal of Sport Finance, 2020)
Competitive Balance
- “It’s Just Not Cricket: The Uncontested Toss and the Gentleman’s Game” (Book Chapter, 2020)
- “A highly disaggregated look at competitive balance” (Book Chapter, 2020)
Forecasting, Prediction Markets and Information Efficiency
- “Informational efficiency and behaviour within in-play prediction markets” (International Journal of Forecasting, 2021)
- “Evaluating Strange Forecasts: The Curious Case of Football Match Scorelines” (Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 2021)
- “Betting on a buzz, mispricing and inefficiency in online sportsbooks” (Working paper, 2021)
- “Betting markets for English Premier League results and scorelines: evaluating a simple forecasting model” (Economic Issues, 2020)
- “Information, prices and efficiency in an online betting market” (Finance Research Letters, 2020)
- “Going with your Gut: The (In)accuracy of Forecast Revisions in a Football Score Prediction Game” (Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 2020
- “The wisdom of amateur crowds: Evidence from an online community of sports tipsters” (European Journal of Operational Research, 2019)
- “Forecasting with Social Media: Evidence from Tweets on Soccer Matches” (Economic Inquiry, 2018)
- “Information and Predictability: Bookmakers, Prediction Markets and Tipsters as Forecasters” (Journal of Prediction Markets, 2014)
Officiating and bias
- “Causal effects of an absent crowd on performances and refereeing decisions during Covid-19” (Economics Letters, 2021)
- “Echoes: what happens when football is played behind closed doors?” (Working paper, 2020)
- “Social Pressure of Rational Reactions to Incentives? A Historical Analysis of Reasons for Referee Bias in Spanish Football” (Working paper, 2019)
- “Officials and Home Advantage” (Book chapter, 2018)
Corruption in Sport
- “Detecting corruption in football” (Book chapter, 2014)
- “On Fixing International Cricket” (Working paper, 2014)
Other
- “Why are We So good At Football, and They So Bad? Institutions and National Footballing Performance” (De Economist, 2021)
- “What can we learn about economics from sport during Covid-19” (Working paper, 2021)