Riding High: Success in Sports and the Rise of Doping Cultures

Holger Strulik

Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 2012, vol. 114, issue 2, 539-574

Abstract: In this paper, I develop a socioeconomic model that can be used to investigate the decisions made by professional athletes concerning doping. In their evaluation of whether to use performance‐enhancing drugs, athletes consider not only costs and benefits (through rank improvement) but also the approval from fellow athletes toward pro‐doping decisions. Peer‐group approval is modeled as a lagged endogenous variable, depending on the share of doping athletes in the history of a sport. As such, the model can explain an equilibrium of high incidence of doping as a “doping culture”. In addition to presenting comparative statics of the equilibrium (i.e., in order to answer the question of how a doping culture can be eliminated), I also investigate how doping decisions are affected by the standards set by the leader in a sport (e.g., Olympic qualification marks), and by the disproportionate public veneration of winners.

Date: 2012
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https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9442.2012.01698.x

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Working Paper: Riding High - Success in Sports and the Rise of Doping Cultures (2007)
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