Sticking with What (Barely) Worked

Lars Lefgren (), Brennan Platt and Joseph Price

No 17477, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Outcome bias occurs when an evaluator considers ex-post outcomes when judging whether a choice was correct, ex-ante. We formalize this cognitive bias in a simple model of distorted Bayesian updating. We then examine strategy changes made by professional football coaches. We find they are more likely to revise their strategy after a loss than a win -- even for narrow losses, which are uninformative about future success. This increased revision following a loss occurs even when a loss was expected, and the offensive strategy is revised even when failure is attributable to the defense. These results are consistent with our model's predictions.

JEL-codes: C11 D03 D81 L83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba
Note: LS
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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