Risk-Taking in High-Stakes Competition: Evidence from Olympic Indoor Volleyball

Dmitry Dagaev (), Elina Ibragimova () and Ekaterina Lodneva ()
Additional contact information
Dmitry Dagaev: New Economic School, HSE University
Elina Ibragimova: HSE University, Kyung Hee University
Ekaterina Lodneva: HSE University, New Economic School

No w0298, Working Papers from New Economic School (NES)

Abstract: How do elite athletes adjust risk-taking across score contexts and tournament stages, and how do these patterns differ between men’s and women’s tournaments? We address these questions using a novel, manually coded rally-level dataset from the 2024 Olympic volleyball tournaments, covering 8,670 rallies from 52 men’s and women’s matches. We operationalize risk through observable tactical choices — serve type and attack placement — and estimate how these choices respond to score context, set progression, and playoff stakes. We find that risk-taking is systematically gendered and context-dependent: men attempt riskier serves as sets near their end, while women grow more conservative when protecting a set lead. In attacking, both genders turn more cautious late in sets. This asymmetry aligns with prospect theory since serving is a loss-domain decision that invites risk-seeking, while attacking is a gain-domain decision that invites risk aversion. Contrary to expectations of caution under elimination pressure, both genders take more risks in the knockout stage. These findings extend behavioral models of risk to a high-stakes team sport setting, with implications for coaching and performance analysis.

Keywords: risk-taking; prospect theory; gender differences; high-stakes games; sports economics; Olympic volleyball (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D81 J16 Z20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2026-08
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nes.ru/files/Preprints-resh/WP298.pdf (application/pdf)

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:abo:neswpt:w0298

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from New Economic School (NES) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Vladimir Ivanyukhin ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).