Early Round Upsets and Championship Blowouts

Rick Harbaugh () and Tilman Klumpp ()

Economic Inquiry, 2005, vol. 43, issue 2, 316-329

Abstract: In equilibrium play of a two-round tournament, we find that underdogs exert more effort in the opening round whereas favorites save more effort for the final. Ability differences are therefore compressed in the opening round so upsets are more likely and amplified in the final so blowouts are more likely. Measures that reduce the need to strategically allocate effort make for a more exciting final but a less exciting opening round. Consistent with the model, introduction of a rest day between matches in the NCAA men's basketball tournament increased the favorite's victory margin in the semifinals by about five points.(JEL L83, D72) Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.

JEL-codes: D72 L83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (60)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ei/cbi021 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Early Round Upsets and Championship Blowouts (2004)
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:oup:ecinqu:v:43:y:2005:i:2:p:316-329

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Inquiry is currently edited by Preston McAfee

More articles in Economic Inquiry from Western Economic Association International Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().