Racial Discrimination Among NBA Referees

Joseph Price and Justin Wolfers

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2010, vol. 125, issue 4, 1859-1887

Abstract: The NBA provides an intriguing place to assess discrimination: referees and players are involved in repeated interactions in a high-pressure setting, with referees making split-second decisions that might allow implicit racial biases to become evident. We find that more personal fouls are awarded against players when they are officiated by an opposite-race officiating crew than when they are officiated by an own-race refereeing crew. These biases are sufficiently large so that they affect the outcome of an appreciable number of games. Our results do not distinguish whether the bias stems from the actions of white or black referees.

Date: 2010
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Related works:
Working Paper: Racial Discrimination Among NBA Referees (2007)
Working Paper: Racial Discrimination Among NBA Referees (2007)
Working Paper: Racial Discrimination Among NBA Referees (2007)
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