Based on the Calciopoli scandal, which uncovered widespread corruption in Italian football, this paper quantifies the effect of referee bias on the performance of football teams. The impartiality of referees is often distorted by external factors which exert some emotional pressure in order to...

Why high levels of market liberalization can be supported by both repressive and liberal political regimes? Drawing from Acemoglu and Robinson (2006), we use a large dataset of world economies and document the existence of a U-shaped relationship between political and economic liberalization....