IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp4812.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Risk Taking Behavior in Tournaments: Evidence from the NBA

Author

Listed:
  • Grund, Christian

    (RWTH Aachen University)

  • Höcker, Jan

    (University of Würzburg)

  • Zimmermann, Stefan

    (University of Würzburg)

Abstract

We empirically explore the relevance of risk taking behavior in tournaments. We make use of data from the NBA season 2007/2008 and measure risk taking by the fraction of three-point shots. Current heterogeneity of teams is taken into account by intermediate results. It turns out that indeed teams who are behind increase the risk in terms of more three-point attempts. We additionally analyze the consequences of this change in behavior. Enhanced risk taking is inefficient for the vast majority of cases and only beneficial in terms of a higher winning probability if a team is behind with a rather large amount of points. We discuss possible explanations for these decision errors.

Suggested Citation

  • Grund, Christian & Höcker, Jan & Zimmermann, Stefan, 2010. "Risk Taking Behavior in Tournaments: Evidence from the NBA," IZA Discussion Papers 4812, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4812
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp4812.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bodvarsson, Orn B & Brastow, Raymond T, 1998. "Do Employers Pay for Consistent Performance?: Evidence from the NBA," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 36(1), pages 145-160, January.
    2. Lazear, Edward P & Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 841-864, October.
    3. Lee, Jungmin, 2004. "Prize and Risk-Taking Strategy in Tournaments: Evidence from Professional Poker Players," IZA Discussion Papers 1345, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Kempf, Alexander & Ruenzi, Stefan & Thiele, Tanja, 2009. "Employment risk, compensation incentives, and managerial risk taking: Evidence from the mutual fund industry," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 92-108, April.
    5. Camerer, Colin F. & Weber, Roberto A., 1999. "The econometrics and behavioral economics of escalation of commitment: a re-examination of Staw and Hoang's NBA data," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 59-82, May.
    6. Christian Grund & Oliver Gurtler, 2005. "An empirical study on risk-taking in tournaments," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(8), pages 457-461.
    7. Chevalier, Judith & Ellison, Glenn, 1997. "Risk Taking by Mutual Funds as a Response to Incentives," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(6), pages 1167-1200, December.
    8. Hans K. Hvide, 2002. "Tournament Rewards and Risk Taking," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(4), pages 877-898, October.
    9. DeFusco, Richard A & Johnson, Robert R & Zorn, Thomas S, 1990. "The Effect of Executive Stock Option Plans on Stockholders and Bondholders," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(2), pages 617-627, June.
    10. Franz Wirl & Simon Sagmeister, 2008. "Changing of the guards: New coaches in Austria’s premier football league," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 35(3), pages 267-278, July.
    11. Samuelson, William & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1988. "Status Quo Bias in Decision Making," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 7-59, March.
    12. Anil Gaba & Ajay Kalra, 1999. "Risk Behavior in Response to Quotas and Contests," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 18(3), pages 417-434.
    13. Taylor, Jonathan, 2003. "Risk-taking behavior in mutual fund tournaments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 373-383, March.
    14. Scharfstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1990. "Herd Behavior and Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 465-479, June.
    15. Christos Genakos & Mario Pagliero, 2012. "Interim Rank, Risk Taking, and Performance in Dynamic Tournaments," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(4), pages 782-813.
    16. Genakos, Christos & Pagliero, Mario, 2009. "Risk taking and performance in multistage tournaments: evidence from weightlifting competitions," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 28599, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Beck A. Taylor & Justin G. Trogdon, 2002. "Losing to Win: Tournament Incentives in the National Basketball Association," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(1), pages 23-41, January.
    18. Hoang, Ha & Rascher, Dan, 1999. "The NBA, Exit Discrimination, and Career Earnings," MPRA Paper 3542, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Rajgopal, Shivaram & Shevlin, Terry, 2002. "Empirical evidence on the relation between stock option compensation and risk taking," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 145-171, June.
    20. Lazear, Edward P, 1989. "Pay Equality and Industrial Politics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(3), pages 561-580, June.
    21. Coles, Jeffrey L. & Daniel, Naveen D. & Naveen, Lalitha, 2006. "Managerial incentives and risk-taking," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 431-468, February.
    22. Harbring, Christine & Irlenbusch, Bernd, 2008. "How many winners are good to have?: On tournaments with sabotage," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 65(3-4), pages 682-702, March.
    23. Garicano, Luis & Palacios-Huerta, Ignacio, 2005. "Sabotage in Tournaments: Making the Beautiful Game a Bit Less Beautiful," CEPR Discussion Papers 5231, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    24. Kanodia, C & Bushman, R & Dickhaut, J, 1989. "Escalation Errors And The Sunk Cost Effect - An Explanation Based On Reputation And Information Asymmetries," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 59-77.
    25. Brown, Keith C & Harlow, W V & Starks, Laura T, 1996. "Of Tournaments and Temptations: An Analysis of Managerial Incentives in the Mutual Fund Industry," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 85-110, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Should losing NBA teams take 3 point shots?
      by Ariel Goldring in Free Market Mojo on 2010-08-30 19:07:21

    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. Cui, Xuegang & Feltovich, Nick & Zhang, Kun, 2022. "Incentive schemes, framing, and market behaviour: Evidence from an asset-market experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 301-324.
    2. Gürtler, Oliver & Struth, Lennart & Thon, Max, 2023. "Competition and risk-taking," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    3. Kräkel, Matthias, 2008. "Optimal risk taking in an uneven tournament game with risk averse players," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(11), pages 1219-1231, December.
    4. J. Atsu Amegashie, 2009. "American Idol: should it be a singing contest or a popularity contest?," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 33(4), pages 265-277, November.
    5. Bai, Gang & Elyasiani, Elyas, 2013. "Bank stability and managerial compensation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 799-813.
    6. Mueller-Langer Frank & Andreoli-Versbach Patrick, 2017. "Leading-Effect, Risk-Taking and Sabotage in Two-Stage Tournaments: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 237(1), pages 1-28, February.
    7. Mueller-Langer, Frank & Andreoli-Versbach, Patrick, 2013. "Leading-effect vs. Risk-taking in Dynamic Tournaments: Evidence from a Real-life Randomized Experiment," Discussion Papers in Economics 15452, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    8. Debapriya Jojo Paul & Julia Henker & Sian Owen, 2019. "The aggregate impacts of tournament incentives in experimental asset markets," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(2), pages 441-476, June.
    9. Charness, Gary & Kuhn, Peter, 2011. "Lab Labor: What Can Labor Economists Learn from the Lab?," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 3, pages 229-330, Elsevier.
    10. Buzzacchi, Luigi & Scellato, Giuseppe & Ughetto, Elisa, 2015. "Investment stage drifts and venture capital managerial incentives," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 118-128.
    11. Stephen Easton & Sean Pinder & Steven Stern, 2018. "Documenting the functional form of dynamic risk‐taking behaviour in a real options context using sporting contests," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 58(S1), pages 159-178, November.
    12. Nieken, Petra & Sliwka, Dirk, 2010. "Risk-taking tournaments - Theory and experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 254-268, June.
    13. Dimmock, Stephen G. & Gerken, William C. & Marietta-Westberg, Jennifer, 2015. "What determines the allocation of managerial ownership within firms? Evidence from investment management firms," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 44-64.
    14. Steffen Keck & Natalia Karelaia, 2012. "Does competition foster trust? The role of tournament incentives," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 15(1), pages 204-228, March.
    15. Eriksen, Kristoffer W. & Kvaløy, Ola, 2014. "Myopic risk-taking in tournaments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 37-46.
    16. Subhasish Chowdhury & Oliver Gürtler, 2015. "Sabotage in contests: a survey," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 164(1), pages 135-155, July.
    17. Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2008. "Thought and Behavior Contagion in Capital Markets," MPRA Paper 9142, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Christos Genakos & Mario Pagliero, 2012. "Interim Rank, Risk Taking, and Performance in Dynamic Tournaments," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(4), pages 782-813.
    19. Eriksen, Kristoffer W & Kvaløy, Ola, 2015. "2015/01 No guts, no glory: An experiment on excessive risk-taking by Kristoffer W. Eriksen and Ola Kvaløy," UiS Working Papers in Economics and Finance 2015/1, University of Stavanger.
    20. Fang, Dawei & Holmén, Martin & Kleinlercher, Daniel & Kirchler, Michael, 2017. "How tournament incentives affect asset markets: A comparison between winner-take-all tournaments and elimination contests," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 1-27.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    risk taking; NBA; basketball; tournaments;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • M5 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp4812. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.