This paper evaluates the European football clubs' compliance with UEFA Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations and the effect of financial stability on sport achievements. The empirical analysis uses data of teams competing in the 1st division of four top domestic leagues (Premier League, La Liga,...

We use data on British football managers and teams over the 1994-2007 period to study substitution and complementarity between leaders and subordinates. We find for the Premier League (the highest level of competition) that, other things being equal, managers who themselves played at a higher...

Research on employers' hiring discrimination is limited by the unlawfulness of such activity. Consequently, researchers have focused on the intention to hire. Instead, we rely on a virtual labour market, the Fantasy Football Premier League, where employers can freely exercise their taste for...

This paper contributes to the literature of gender differences in academic attainment by putting together several sources of data going back several decades to investigate how gender stereotypes and parental time investments shape sport choices of boys and girls during high school. Using data...

This study is the first to estimate the effects of the sending-off of a player on the full time results in international club soccer. To this end, we analyse data of more than 2,000 recent games in the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. We find that when home teams receive a red card,...

We investigate whether the home advantage in soccer differs by various dimensions of distance between the (regions of the) home and away teams: geographical distance, climatic differences, cultural distance, and disparities in economic prosperity. To this end, we analyse 2,012 recent matches...

We are the first to investigate whether the introduction of additional assistant referees in the UEFA Europa League (in season 2009-2010) and the UEFA Champions League (in season 2010-2011) was associated with lower referee bias. To this end, we analyse a unique database with pre- and...

That football Head Coaches will be dismissed for poor performance and will quit when they have better outside options seems to be nothing more than a statement of the obvious. But owners may find it hard to distinguish poor performance from bad luck and may find it difficult to identify and...

We analyze gender differences in risk-taking in high-pressure situations. Using novel data from professional athletes (NBA and WNBA), we find that male teams increase their risk-taking towards the end of matches when a successful risky strategy could secure winning the match. Female teams, in...

In this paper, we estimate the causal effect of ambient air pollution on individuals' productivity by using panel data on the universe of professional soccer players in Germany over the period 1999-2011. Combining this data with hourly information on the concentration of particulate matter in...