Abstract:
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College football conferences provide a unique environment to investigate biases among on-field referees, the decision-makers tasked with rule enforcement. College football is special because the officiating for inter-university matchups is governed at the conference (alliance) level, which allows for both intra-alliance (in-conference) and inter-alliance (out-of-conference) conflicts (games). This sets up a "natural experiment." Using generalized linear models and eight years of Division I games (2005 to 2012), we find evidence of bias among college football referees across a number of specifications, with Atlantic Coast Conference ("ACC") officials being the strongest outliers. The analysis highlights several biases in a workplace where workers face considerable scrutiny. Such biases, whether volitional or sub-conscious, speak to the increased need in the sports industry for transparent referee monitoring systems as a tool to preserve the credibility of the underlying sporting competition against integrity-attacking match-fixing and gambling manipulation.
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