Giulio Callegaro , Mario Lackner , Hendrik Sonnabend
{"title":"The Napoleon complex revisited: New evidence from professional soccer","authors":"Giulio Callegaro , Mario Lackner , Hendrik Sonnabend","doi":"10.1016/j.socec.2025.102352","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We analyse evaluation biases caused by physical attributes. Using data from German elite soccer, we find that referees are more inclined to sanction players when the difference in body size is sufficiently large. Moreover, we document an ‘inverse Napoleon effect’ in situations when the referee is confronted with smaller players, suggesting that sanctions are used as a substitute for authority gained by stature in the industry. Further analyses reveal that referees discriminate less against more talented players and teams with a higher concentration of these players. Finally, we find that the bias is reduced but still exists for the group of more experienced referees.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51637,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics","volume":"116 ","pages":"Article 102352"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6000,"publicationDate":"2025-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214804325000199","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
We analyse evaluation biases caused by physical attributes. Using data from German elite soccer, we find that referees are more inclined to sanction players when the difference in body size is sufficiently large. Moreover, we document an ‘inverse Napoleon effect’ in situations when the referee is confronted with smaller players, suggesting that sanctions are used as a substitute for authority gained by stature in the industry. Further analyses reveal that referees discriminate less against more talented players and teams with a higher concentration of these players. Finally, we find that the bias is reduced but still exists for the group of more experienced referees.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly the Journal of Socio-Economics) welcomes submissions that deal with various economic topics but also involve issues that are related to other social sciences, especially psychology, or use experimental methods of inquiry. Thus, contributions in behavioral economics, experimental economics, economic psychology, and judgment and decision making are especially welcome. The journal is open to different research methodologies, as long as they are relevant to the topic and employed rigorously. Possible methodologies include, for example, experiments, surveys, empirical work, theoretical models, meta-analyses, case studies, and simulation-based analyses. Literature reviews that integrate findings from many studies are also welcome, but they should synthesize the literature in a useful manner and provide substantial contribution beyond what the reader could get by simply reading the abstracts of the cited papers. In empirical work, it is important that the results are not only statistically significant but also economically significant. A high contribution-to-length ratio is expected from published articles and therefore papers should not be unnecessarily long, and short articles are welcome. Articles should be written in a manner that is intelligible to our generalist readership. Book reviews are generally solicited but occasionally unsolicited reviews will also be published. Contact the Book Review Editor for related inquiries.