We review the theoretical literature on market determinants of media bias. We present a theoretical framework that organizes many key themes in the literature, and discuss substantive lessons.

This paper empirically investigates three hypotheses regarding biases of National Basketball Association referees. Identification of basketball referee bias is typically difficult as changes in observed statistics may be caused by either changes in referee bias or player behavior. We identify bias by exploiting the fact that referees have varying degrees of discretion over different types of a particular statistic-turnovers. This allows us to conduct a treatment and control-style analysis, using the less discretionary turnovers as the player behavior control. The results provide evidence that referees favor home teams, teams losing during games, and teams losing in playoff series. All three biases are likely to increase consumer demand.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Most studies of Bayesian updating use experimental data. This article uses a non-experimental data source-the voter ballots of the Associated Press college football poll, a weekly subjective ranking of the top 25 teams-to test Bayes' rule as a descriptive model. I find that voters sometimes underreact to new information, sometimes overreact, and at other times their behavior is consistent with estimated Bayesian updating. A unifying explanation for the disparate results is that voters are more responsive to information that is more salient (i.e., noticeable). In particular, voters respond in a "more Bayesian" way to losses and wins over ranked teams, as compared to wins over unranked teams, and voters seem unaware of subtle variation in the precision of priors. (JEL D80, D83, D84) 2. There are a number of other fairly well-known criticisms of experimental work. Levitt and List (2007) provide an interesting discussion of some of these issues, including self-selection of subjects, small stakes, self-consciousness, inability to confer with others, and insufficient time to make optimal decisions. 3. Several other academic studies have used the AP Top 25 as a data source, including Goff (1996), Lebovic and Sigelman (2001), and Logan (2010). None focus on analyzing the rationality of belief updating.

No abstract

The authors analyze the effects of psychological pressure on performance using National Basketball Association (NBA) free throw data from the 2002-2003 through 2009-2010 seasons. The authors find evidence that players choke under pressurethey shoot on average 5-10 percentage points worse than normal in the final seconds of very close games. Choking is more likely for players who are worse overall free throw shooters, and on the second shot of a pair after the first shot is missed. In general, performance declines as pressure increases (as game time remaining decreases, and as the score margin decreases, whether the shooter's team is winning or losing). However, the authors find no evidence of choking when games are tied in the final 15 seconds.