Sometimes Losing Leads to Winning

David Pipke

No vdpj6_v1, SocArXiv from Center for Open Science

Abstract: Seminal evidence from Berger and Pope (2011) shows that teams slightly behind at halftime are more likely to win. A recent study by Klein Teeselink et al. (2023), however, suggests this finding is an artifact confined to the 1999–2009 NBA seasons. Using an independently assembled dataset of 546,628 professional games, I revisit this question with a local regression-discontinuity design. I document that the “behind-at-halftime advantage” is not an artifact: it appears robustly in NBA/ABA play in the late 1960s–early 1970s and in non-U.S. leagues long after the original study. Its attenuation in the modern NBA coincides with strategic adjustments by leading teams, who appear to have learned to counter their opponents’ motivational surge. The results show that reference-dependent motivation is a robust phenomenon, but its expression in equilibrium depends on context and strategic adaptation by opponents.

Date: 2025-09-30
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:socarx:vdpj6_v1

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/vdpj6_v1

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