IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/labeco/v52y2018icp74-82.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Peer effects in marathon racing: The role of pace setters

Author

Listed:
  • Emerson, Jamie
  • Hill, Brian

Abstract

Marathon races are rank-order tournaments with prizes determined primarily by relative performance. As a result, peer performance is an important determinant of an individual's performance. Peer effects have been extensively studied in a variety of settings, with much of the research concerned with finding a measure of peer performance that is exogenous. We focus our research on marathon races with pace setters as their presence allows for us to identify exogenous peer effects by identifying variation in peer performance and ability that is exogenous. Using data on elite male runners from 2009 to 2014 marathons in Berlin, Chicago, and London, we find the presence of negative exogenous peer effects and this result is robust to a number of peer performance variables. We attribute our result to the self-sorting of runners by ability and the subsequent invidious comparison that occurs in marathons with pace setters.

Suggested Citation

  • Emerson, Jamie & Hill, Brian, 2018. "Peer effects in marathon racing: The role of pace setters," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 74-82.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:52:y:2018:i:c:p:74-82
    DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2018.03.008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537118300307
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.labeco.2018.03.008?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andreas Ammermueller & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Peer Effects in European Primary Schools: Evidence from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(3), pages 315-348, July.
    2. Esther Duflo & Pascaline Dupas & Michael Kremer, 2011. "Peer Effects, Teacher Incentives, and the Impact of Tracking: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Kenya," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 1739-1774, August.
    3. Oriana Bandiera & Iwan Barankay & Imran Rasul, 2010. "Social Incentives in the Workplace," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(2), pages 417-458.
    4. Alexandre Mas & Enrico Moretti, 2009. "Peers at Work," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 112-145, March.
    5. Jonathan Guryan & Kory Kroft & Matthew J. Notowidigdo, 2009. "Peer Effects in the Workplace: Evidence from Random Groupings in Professional Golf Tournaments," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(4), pages 34-68, October.
    6. Brady, Ryan R. & Insler, Michael A. & Rahman, Ahmed S., 2017. "Bad Company: Understanding negative peer effects in college achievement," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 144-168.
    7. Charles F. Manski, 1993. "Identification of Endogenous Social Effects: The Reflection Problem," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(3), pages 531-542.
    8. Brian Hill, 2014. "The Heat Is On," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 15(4), pages 315-337, August.
    9. Jamie Emerson & Brian Hill, 2014. "Gender Differences in Competition: Running Performance in 1,500 Meter Tournaments," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 40(4), pages 499-517, September.
    10. Jennifer Brown, 2011. "Quitters Never Win: The (Adverse) Incentive Effects of Competing with Superstars," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(5), pages 982-1013.
    11. Scott E. Carrell & Bruce I. Sacerdote & James E. West, 2013. "From Natural Variation to Optimal Policy? The Importance of Endogenous Peer Group Formation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(3), pages 855-882, May.
    12. Scott E. Carrell & Richard L. Fullerton & James E. West, 2009. "Does Your Cohort Matter? Measuring Peer Effects in College Achievement," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(3), pages 439-464, July.
    13. Shoko Yamane & Ryohei Hayashi, 2015. "Peer Effects among Swimmers," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 117(4), pages 1230-1255, October.
    14. Angrist, Joshua D., 2014. "The perils of peer effects," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 98-108.
    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. Richard J. Paulsen, 2022. "Peer effects and human capital accumulation: Time spent in college and productivity in the National Basketball Association," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(8), pages 3611-3619, December.
    2. Mariia Molodchik & Sofiia Paklina & Petr Parshakov, 2021. "Peer Effects on Individual Performance in a Team Sport," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 22(5), pages 571-586, June.
    3. Matteo Pazzona, 2022. "Peer interactions and performance in a high‐skilled labour market," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 124(4), pages 1087-1116, October.
    4. Jamie Emerson & Theresa Manns, 2024. "Risk-taking and performance in marathon running: do pace setters matter?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 44(3), pages 771-780.

    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. Alexandra de Gendre & Nicolás Salamanca, 2020. "On the Mechanisms of Ability Peer Effects," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2020n19, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    2. Petra Thiemann, 2022. "The Persistent Effects of Short-Term Peer Groups on Performance: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Higher Education," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(2), pages 1131-1148, February.
    3. Ashby, Nathan J., 2023. "An examination of peer effects using high school competition realignments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 206(C), pages 122-135.
    4. Daniel C. Hickman & Neil E. Metz, 2018. "Peer Effects In A Competitive Environment: Evidence From The Pga Tour," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(1), pages 208-225, January.
    5. Matteo Pazzona, 2022. "Peer interactions and performance in a high‐skilled labour market," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 124(4), pages 1087-1116, October.
    6. Brady, Ryan R. & Insler, Michael A., 2019. "Order of play advantage in sequential tournaments: Evidence from randomized settings in professional golf," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 79-92.
    7. Coveney, Max & Oosterveen, Matthijs, 2021. "What drives ability peer effects?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    8. Adam S. Booij & Edwin Leuven & Hessel Oosterbeek, 2017. "Ability Peer Effects in University: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(2), pages 547-578.
    9. Jones, Todd R. & Kofoed, Michael S., 2020. "Do peers influence occupational preferences? Evidence from randomly-assigned peer groups at West Point," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    10. Antonia Grohmann & Sahra Sakha, 2015. "The Effect of Peer Observation on Consumption Choices: Experimental Evidence," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1525, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    11. Jan Feld & Ulf Zölitz, 2017. "Understanding Peer Effects: On the Nature, Estimation, and Channels of Peer Effects," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(2), pages 387-428.
    12. Richard Murphy & Felix Weinhardt, 2020. "Top of the Class: The Importance of Ordinal Rank," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(6), pages 2777-2826.
    13. Essbaumer, Elisabeth, 2024. "Peer Effects and Social Mobility," Economics Working Paper Series 2401, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    14. Kuersteiner, Guido M. & Prucha, Ingmar R. & Zeng, Ying, 2023. "Efficient peer effects estimators with group effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 2155-2194.
    15. Stephen Gibbons & Shqiponja Telhaj, 2016. "Peer Effects: Evidence from Secondary School Transition in England," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 78(4), pages 548-575, August.
    16. Wennberg, Karl & Norgren, Axel, 2021. "Models of Peer Effects in Education," Working Papers 21/3, Stockholm School of Economics, Center for Educational Leadership and Excellence.
    17. Bin Huang & Rong Zhu, 2020. "Peer effects of low-ability students in the classroom: evidence from China’s middle schools," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(4), pages 1343-1380, October.
    18. Heather Antecol & Ozkan Eren & Serkan Ozbeklik, 2016. "Peer Effects in Disadvantaged Primary Schools: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 51(1), pages 95-132.
    19. Stefanie Fischer, 2016. "The Downside of Good Peers: How Classroom Composition Differentially Affects Men’s and Women’s STEM Persistence," Working Papers 1605, California Polytechnic State University, Department of Economics.
    20. Hikaru Kawarazaki & Minhaj Mahmud & Yasuyuki Sawada & Mai Seki, 2023. "Haste Makes No Waste: Positive Peer Effects of Classroom Speed Competition on Learning," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 85(4), pages 755-772, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Peer effects; Strategic interaction; Elite competition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J44 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Professional Labor Markets and Occupations
    • L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism

    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:eee:labeco:v:52:y:2018:i:c:p:74-82. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/labeco .

    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.