Match-Rigging in Professional Sumo: Elucidation of Incentive Structures and Empirical Analysis

Masahiro Hori and Koichiro Iwamoto

No 580, CIS Discussion paper series from Center for Intergenerational Studies, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University

Abstract: This paper first develops a simple model to show that incentives for match-rigging in professional sumo differ depending on the rank to which a wrestler belongs. While incentives for match-rigging can arise for wrestlers in the top divisions (sekitori), few incentives arise for wrestlers-in-training (makushita and below). We then report the results of our empirical analysis, which show that match-rigging in the top divisions has declined in the post-Duggan and Levitt (2002) period, and that at the wrestler-in-training level there was no statistically detectable match-rigging during any period. We find further that match-rigging in professional sumo has stabilized at statistically undetectable levels following the mobile phone text message match-rigging scandal, and that on average the wrestlers selected for sanctions following the scandal were in fact those most involved in match-rigging.

Keywords: Sumo wrestling; match rigging; incentive scheme (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K42 L83 M52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2013-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://hermes-ir.lib.hit-u.ac.jp/hermes/ir/re/25431/cis_dp580.pdf

Related works:
Journal Article: Match-Rigging in Professional Sumo-Elucidation of Incentive Structures and Empirical Analysis- (2013)
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:hit:cisdps:580

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CIS Discussion paper series from Center for Intergenerational Studies, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Digital Resources Section, Hitotsubashi University Library ().