IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/coecpo/v36y2018i1p183-191.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Examining Regulatory Capture: Evidence From The Nhl

Author

Listed:
  • Gregory DeAngelo
  • Adam Nowak
  • Imke Reimers

Abstract

Regulatory capture has garnered significant attention, but poses a difficult empirical exercise since most relationships between regulators and regulated parties occur behind closed doors. In this research, we overcome this problem by analyzing an environment where the behavior of both the regulator and regulated parties are publicly available. Specifically, we utilize data from the National Hockey League (NHL) to examine the impact of general experience as a referee as well as experience refereeing a particular team on the assignation of penalties. We find that gaining general experience as a referee significantly reduces the number of penalties that a referee assigns. However, as a referee gains experience refereeing a specific team, they significantly reduce the number of penalties assessed to this team relative to teams that they have less experience refereeing, confirming that regulatory capture is observed among referees and teams in the NHL. (JEL G18, L51, K42)

Suggested Citation

  • Gregory DeAngelo & Adam Nowak & Imke Reimers, 2018. "Examining Regulatory Capture: Evidence From The Nhl," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 36(1), pages 183-191, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:36:y:2018:i:1:p:183-191
    DOI: 10.1111/coep.12240
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/coep.12240
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/coep.12240?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Abrevaya Jason & McCulloch Robert, 2014. "Reversal of fortune: a statistical analysis of penalty calls in the National Hockey League," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 10(2), pages 207-224, June.
    2. Boot, Arnoud W A & Thakor, Anjan V, 1993. "Self-Interested Bank Regulation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(2), pages 206-212, May.
    3. Baron, David P. & Besanko, David, 1984. "Regulation and information in a continuing relationship," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 267-302.
    4. Luis Garicano & Ignacio Palacios-Huerta & Canice Prendergast, 2005. "Favoritism Under Social Pressure," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(2), pages 208-216, May.
    5. Ernesto Dal Bo & Rafael Di Tella, 2003. "Capture by Threat," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(5), pages 1123-1152, October.
    6. Ernesto Dal Bo´, 2006. "Regulatory Capture: A Review," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 22(2), pages 203-225, Summer.
    7. George J. Stigler, 1971. "The Theory of Economic Regulation," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 2(1), pages 3-21, Spring.
    8. DeAngelo, Gregory & Humphreys, Brad R. & Reimers, Imke, 2017. "Are public and private enforcement complements or substitutes? Evidence from high frequency data," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 151-163.
    9. Joseph Price & Justin Wolfers, 2010. "Racial Discrimination Among NBA Referees," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(4), pages 1859-1887.
    10. Levitt Steven D., 2002. "Testing the Economic Model of Crime:The National Hockey League's Two-Referee Experiment," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-21, January.
    11. William Boyes & John McDowell, 1989. "The selection of public utility commissioners: A re-examination of the importance of institutional setting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 61(1), pages 1-13, April.
    12. Smart, Susan R, 1994. "The Consequences of Appointment Methods and Party Control for Telecommunications Pricing," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 3(2), pages 301-323, Summer.
    13. Craig A. Depken, Ii & Dennis P. Wilson, 2004. "Wherein Lies the Benefit of the Second Referee in the NHL?," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 24(1), pages 51-72, February.
    14. Hilton, George W, 1972. "The Basic Behavior of Regulatory Commissions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(2), pages 47-54, May.
    15. Peter Dawson & Stephen Dobson & John Goddard & John Wilson, 2007. "Are football referees really biased and inconsistent?: evidence on the incidence of disciplinary sanction in the English Premier League," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 170(1), pages 231-250, January.
    16. Ades, Alberto & Di Tella, Rafael, 1997. "National Champions and Corruption: Some Unpleasant Interventionist Arithmetic," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(443), pages 1023-1042, July.
    17. Susan R. Smart, 1994. "The Consequences of Appointment Methods and Party Control for Telecommunications Pricing," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 3(2), pages 301-323, June.
    18. Spiller, Pablo T & Tiller, Emerson H, 1997. "Decision Costs and the Strategic Design of Administrative Process and Judicial Review," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(2), pages 347-370, June.
    19. McCormick, Robert E & Tollison, Robert D, 1984. "Crime on the Court," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(2), pages 223-235, April.
    20. Kevin P. Hutchinson & Andrew J. Yates, 2007. "Crime on the Court: A Correction," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(3), pages 515-519.
    21. Clare Leaver, 2009. "Bureaucratic Minimal Squawk Behavior: Theory and Evidence from Regulatory Agencies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 572-607, June.
    22. Gregory DeAngelo & Benjamin Hansen, 2014. "Life and Death in the Fast Lane: Police Enforcement and Traffic Fatalities," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(2), pages 231-257, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sheila Olmstead & Jiameng Zheng, 2019. "Policy Instruments for Water Pollution Control in Developing Countries," World Bank Publications - Reports 33072, The World Bank Group.
    2. Greiner, Michael & Lee, Jaegul, 2020. "A supply-side approach to corporate political activity: Performance consequences of ideologically driven CPA," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 25-37.
    3. Gregory DeAngelo & Taylor Leland Smith, 2020. "Private security, maritime piracy and the provision of international public safety," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 60(1), pages 77-97, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Estache, Antonio & Wren-Lewis, Liam, 2010. "What Anti-Corruption Policy Can Learn from Theories of Sector Regulation," CEPR Discussion Papers 8082, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Antonio Estache & Liam Wren-Lewis, 2011. "Anti-Corruption Policy in Theories of Sector Regulation," Chapters, in: Susan Rose-Ackerman & Tina Søreide (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Corruption, Volume Two, chapter 9, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Thomas Dohmen & Jan Sauermann, 2016. "Referee Bias," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 679-695, September.
    4. Carl Kitchens & Matthew Philip Makofske & Le Wang, 2019. "“Crime” on the Field," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(3), pages 821-864, January.
    5. Chan, Ho Fai & Savage, David A. & Torgler, Benno, 2019. "There and back again: Adaptation after repeated rule changes of the game," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 75(PB).
    6. Zingales, Luigi, 2014. "Preventing Economists' Capture," CEPR Discussion Papers 9867, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Parinandi, Srinivas & Hitt, Matthew P., 2018. "How Politics Influences the Energy Pricing Decisions of Elected Public Utilities Commissioners," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 77-87.
    8. Dawson, Peter & Massey, Patrick & Downward, Paul, 2020. "Television match officials, referees, and home advantage: Evidence from the European Rugby Cup," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 443-454.
    9. Craig A. Depken & Peter A. Groothuis & Mark C. Strazicich, 2020. "Evolution Of Community Deterrence: Evidence From The National Hockey League," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 38(2), pages 289-303, April.
    10. Flavio Menezes & Magnus Söderberg & Miguel Santolino, 2012. "Regulatory behaviour under threat of court reversal," Discussion Papers Series 472, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    11. George F. N. Shoukry, 2016. "Criminals' Response To Changing Crime Lucre," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(3), pages 1464-1483, July.
    12. Stefano Cabras & J. D. Tena, 2023. "Implicit institutional incentives and individual decisions: Causal inference with deep learning models," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(6), pages 3739-3754, September.
    13. Radek Janhuba & Kristyna Cechova, 2017. "Criminals on the Field: A Study of College Football," Working Papers IES 2017/13, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised Jul 2017.
    14. Douglas N. VanDerwerken & Jacek Rothert & Brice M. Nguelifack, 2018. "Does the Threat of Suspension Curb Dangerous Behavior in Soccer? A Case Study From the Premier League," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(6), pages 759-785, August.
    15. Grace, Martin F. & Phillips, Richard D., 2008. "Regulator performance, regulatory environment and outcomes: An examination of insurance regulator career incentives on state insurance markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 116-133, January.
    16. Adam Fremeth & Guy Holburn & Pablo Spiller, 2014. "The impact of consumer advocates on regulatory policy in the electric utility sector," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 161(1), pages 157-181, October.
    17. Edoardo Gallo & Thomas Grund & J. James Reade, 2013. "Punishing the Foreigner: Implicit Discrimination in the Premier League Based on Oppositional Identity," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 75(1), pages 136-156, February.
    18. De Chiara, Alessandro & Livio, Luca & Ponce, Jorge, 2018. "Flexible and mandatory banking supervision," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 86-104.
    19. Dawson, Peter & Dobson, Stephen, 2010. "The influence of social pressure and nationality on individual decisions: Evidence from the behaviour of referees," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 181-191, April.
    20. Stefano Cabras & J. James Reade & J.D. Tena, 2018. "Social Pressure or Rational Reactions to Incentives? A Historical Analysis of Reasons for Referee Bias in the Spanish Football," Working Papers 20189, University of Liverpool, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:36:y:2018:i:1:p:183-191. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/weaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.