Professional Sporting Events and Traffic: Evidence from US Cities

Brad Humphreys and Hyunwoong Pyun ()

No 17-05, Working Papers from Department of Economics, West Virginia University

Abstract: Sporting events concentrate people at specific locations on game day. No empirical evidence currently exists linking sporting events to local traffic conditions. We analyze urban mobility data from 25 US etropolitan areas with MLB teams over the period 1990 to 2014 to assess the relationship between local traffic and Major League Baseball (MLB) games. Instrumental variable regression results indicate MLB attendance causes increases in local vehicle-miles traveled. At the sample average attendance of 2.8 million, average daily vehicle-miles traveled increases by about 6.9% in cities with MLB teams. Traffic congestion increases by 2%, suggesting that MLB games generate congestion externalities.

Keywords: transportation; traffic congestion; vehicle-miles traveled; Major League Baseball (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: R23 R41 Z20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2017-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-spo, nep-tre and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Professional sporting events and traffic: Evidence from U.S. cities (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wvu:wpaper:17-05

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