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Replication: Do coaches stick with what barely worked? Evidence of outcome bias in sports

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  • Meier, Pascal Flurin
  • Flepp, Raphael
  • Franck, Egon

Abstract

We replicate the finding of Lefgren et al. (2015) showing that professional basketball coaches in the NBA discontinuously change their starting lineup more often after narrow losses than after narrow wins. This result is consistent with outcome bias because such narrow outcomes are conditionally uninformative. As our paper shows, this pattern is not restricted to the NBA; we also find evidence of outcome bias in the top women’s professional basketball league and college basketball. Finally, we show that outcome bias in coaching decisions generalizes to the National Football League (NFL). We conclude that outcome bias is credible and robust, although it has weakened over time in some instances.

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  • Meier, Pascal Flurin & Flepp, Raphael & Franck, Egon, 2023. "Replication: Do coaches stick with what barely worked? Evidence of outcome bias in sports," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:99:y:2023:i:c:s016748702300065x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2023.102664
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Sebastian Calonico & Matias D. Cattaneo & Rocio Titiunik, 2014. "Robust data-driven inference in the regression-discontinuity design," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 14(4), pages 909-946, December.
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    11. Pascal Flurin Meier & Raphael Flepp & Philippe Meier & Egon Franck, 2022. "Outcome Bias in Self-evaluations: Quasi-experimental Field Evidence of Swiss Driving License Exams," Working Papers 392, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW).
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