From bias to bliss: Racial preferences and worker productivity in tennis

2025/07/23 by Carsten Creutzburg, Wolfgang Maennig, Steffen Q. Mueller · 1 voice
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Sport and Mega-Event Impacts #Sports Analytics and Performance #Sports, Gender, and Society

paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/coep.70004

openalex publication_date 2025/07/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/19

Abstract

Abstract We investigate the impact of differences in consumers' racial preferences on worker productivity through the example of the home advantage (HA) effect using data on wins in men's tennis from 2001 to 2020 (pre‐COVID‐19). We identify players' racial affiliation as one of five distinct groups by combining clustering and facial recognition methods. Our empirical design allows us to distinguish among HA factors related to the presence of fans, referee bias, travel fatigue, and home‐court familiarity. We provide evidence of social environments where Black players benefit more strongly from fan support than players of other races do, resulting in increased productivity.

Citations

• Racial Discrimination Among NBA Referees
• THE PEOPLE MAKE THE PLACE
• Favoritism Under Social Pressure
• Choking under pressure and gender: Evidence from professional tennis
• Robust Inference With Multiway Clustering

Discussions

• Read Here: doi.org/10.1111/coep... #econsky [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]

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