Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP5231
Authors: Luis Garicano; Ignacio Palacios-Huerta
Abstract: We exploit an incentive change in professional soccer leagues aimed at encouraging more attacking and goal scoring to obtain evidence on the effect of stronger incentives on productive and destructive effort. Using as control the behavior of the same teams in a competition that experienced no changes in incentives, we provide differences-in-differences estimates of the effect of the incentive change on the behavior of teams. We find that, although teams increased offensive effort, they also increased destructive effort (`sabotage') substantially, resulting in no net change in scoring. When ahead, teams became more conservative, increasing their defenders, scoring less goals, and allowing fewer attempts to score by their opponents. We also find that teams that engage more in sabotage activities depress the attendance at their rival's home stadiums, and that indeed attendance suffered as a result of the incentive change. Thus, teams responded to stronger incentives, but in an undesirable way.
Keywords: incentives; multitasking; sabotage; tournaments
JEL Codes: D21; D82; J41; L14; M52; M55
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Stronger incentives (H39) | Increase in offensive efforts (H56) |
| Stronger incentives (H39) | Increase in number of fouls (Z28) |
| Increase in offensive efforts (H56) | No net change in number of goals scored (L21) |
| Increase in number of fouls (Z28) | Decrease in attendance at matches (Z23) |
| Stronger incentives (H39) | Decrease in attendance at matches (Z23) |