THE HARDER THE TASK, THE HIGHER THE SCORE: FINDINGS OF A DIFFICULTY BIAS
Hillary N. Morgan and
Kurt W. Rotthoff
Economic Inquiry, 2014, vol. 52, issue 3, 1014-1026
Abstract:
type="main" xml:lang="en">
Studies have found that going first or last in a sequential order contest leads to a biased outcome, commonly called order bias (or primacy and recency). Studies have also found that judges have a tendency to reward contestants they recognize with additional points, called reference bias. Controlling for known biases, we test for a new type of bias we refer to as “difficulty bias,” which reveals that athletes attempting more difficult routines receive higher execution scores, even when difficulty and execution are judged separately. Despite some identification challenges, we add to the literature by finding strong evidence of a difficulty bias in gymnastics. We also provide generalizations beyond athletics. (JEL L10, L83, D81, J70, Z1)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)
Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/ecin.12074 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:ecinqu:v:52:y:2014:i:3:p:1014-1026
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://ordering.onl ... s.aspx?ref=1465-7295
Access Statistics for this article
Economic Inquiry is currently edited by Tim Salmon
More articles in Economic Inquiry from Western Economic Association International Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().