Singin' in the Rain: A Study of Social Pressure on the Soccer Field

Mikael Priks

No 4481, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: Although social pressure may affect the behavior of individuals, it is very hard to evaluate empirically. A soccer field is an attractive testing ground in the sense that both performance and social pressure by spectators are measurable. The drawback is that the number of spectators is an endogenous variable. To solve this problem, I use pre-game precipitation as an instrument for the number of spectators at Swedish soccer games as it reduces attendance but not relative performance on the field. I find that organized home supporters manage to generate home wins. Highly skilled athletes are consequently influenced by social pressure, which can also help explain the well-known home field advantage.

Keywords: social pressure; bias; home-field advantage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D80 J20 K40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp4481.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:ces:ceswps:_4481

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Klaus Wohlrabe ().