Monitoring experts: insights from the introduction of video assistant referee (VAR) in elite football

AbstractAlong with incentive schemes, another well-established way to align the interests of principals and agents and, consequently, to reduce and eliminate biases and errors is the practice of monitoring. Considering the monitoring of experts, we evaluate the introduction of the most recent monitoring technology in football, the virtual assistant referee (VAR). Focusing on the German Bundesliga and the Italian Serie A, we analyse whether VAR has changed referees’ decision-making behaviour and, in particular, whether this led to changes in referees’ well-documented preferential treatment of home teams. By doing so, we use the introduction of VAR as a natural experiment to examine whether VAR can help overcome inefficiencies in referees’ decision-making and whether it exposes any inefficiencies in the referee selection system. Ex ante (in-)efficiency would imply that few (many) changes in referee decisions are seen after the VAR introduction. Our results suggest, generally, that VAR impacts referees’ decision-making. We confirm current research and conclude that prior to the introduction of the VAR, the home team tends to be favoured with respect to awarded penalty kicks, red cards and the amount of added time in games containing either penalty kicks or red cards. However, because the home bias only partially decreased with the introduction of VAR, it seems that the bias emerges more as a result of the advantages of playing in one’s local surroundings than of the referees’ decisions. We further show that VAR interventions do not correlate with referees’ experience levels. Overall, these modest findings and even non-existent differences indicate that home bias occurs for reasons other than referees, suggesting that the process for training, promoting, and selecting referees at the highest league works well. Finally, our findings suggest that the VAR implementation is aimed at purposes other than classic agent monitoring.

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Quota Women Are Threatening to Men

Swiss Journal of Psychology ◽

10.1024/1421-0185/a000195 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 76 (3) ◽

pp. 107-116 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Klea Faniko ◽

Till Burckhardt ◽

Oriane Sarrasin ◽

Fabio Lorenzi-Cioldi ◽

Siri Øyslebø Sørensen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Organizational Performance ◽

Gender Stereotypes ◽

Perceived Threat ◽

Preferential Treatment ◽

Public Sector Employees ◽

Different Types ◽

Low Levels ◽

Women In Decision Making ◽

The Impact

Abstract. Two studies carried out among Albanian public-sector employees examined the impact of different types of affirmative action policies (AAPs) on (counter)stereotypical perceptions of women in decision-making positions. Study 1 (N = 178) revealed that participants – especially women – perceived women in decision-making positions as more masculine (i.e., agentic) than feminine (i.e., communal). Study 2 (N = 239) showed that different types of AA had different effects on the attribution of gender stereotypes to AAP beneficiaries: Women benefiting from a quota policy were perceived as being more communal than agentic, while those benefiting from weak preferential treatment were perceived as being more agentic than communal. Furthermore, we examined how the belief that AAPs threaten men’s access to decision-making positions influenced the attribution of these traits to AAP beneficiaries. The results showed that men who reported high levels of perceived threat, as compared to men who reported low levels of perceived threat, attributed more communal than agentic traits to the beneficiaries of quotas. These findings suggest that AAPs may have created a backlash against its beneficiaries by emphasizing gender-stereotypical or counterstereotypical traits. Thus, the framing of AAPs, for instance, as a matter of enhancing organizational performance, in the process of policy making and implementation, may be a crucial tool to countering potential backlash.

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Financial Decision-making and Portfolio Choice under Behavioral Preferences: Implications for the Equity Home Bias Puzzle

SSRN Electronic Journal ◽

10.2139/ssrn.725521 ◽

2005 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Alessandro Magi

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Portfolio Choice ◽

Home Bias ◽

Equity Home Bias ◽

Financial Decision Making ◽

Behavioral Preferences ◽

Home Bias Puzzle ◽

Financial Decision

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Going Beyond Panaceas: The Diversity of Land Observatory Forms in Africa

Land ◽

10.3390/land9030070 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 9 (3) ◽

pp. 70 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Quentin Grislain ◽

Jeremy Bourgoin ◽

Ward Anseeuw ◽

Perrine Burnod ◽

Eva Hershaw ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Participant Observation ◽

Video Conferencing ◽

Analytical Framework ◽

Informed Decision ◽

Informed Decision Making ◽

Information Production ◽

Dynamic Data ◽

Ex Post ◽

Ex Ante

In recent decades, mechanisms for observation and information production have proliferated in an attempt to meet the growing needs of stakeholders to access dynamic data for the purposes of informed decision-making. In the land sector, a growing number of land observatories are producing data and ensuring its transparency. We hypothesize that these structures are being developed in response to the need for information and knowledge, a need that is being driven by the scale and diversity of land issues. Based on the results of a study conducted on land observatories in Africa, this paper presents existing and past land observatories on the continent and proposes to assess their diversity through an analysis of core dimensions identified in the literature. The analytical framework was implemented through i) an analysis of existing literature on land observatories, ii) detailed assessments of land observatories based on semi-open interviews conducted via video conferencing, iii) fieldwork and visits to several observatories, and iv) participant observation through direct engagement and work at land observatories. We emphasize that the analytical framework presented here can be used as a tool by land observatories to undertake ex-post self-evaluations that take the observatory’s trajectory into account, or in the case of proposed new land observatories, to undertake ex-ante analyses and design the pathway towards the intended observatory.

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Chameleonic knowledge: a study of ex ante analysis in large infrastructure policy processes

Policy Sciences ◽

10.1007/s11077-021-09423-5 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Lars Dorren ◽

Wouter Van Dooren

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Decision Makers ◽

Policy Outcomes ◽

Knowledge Use ◽

Short Term ◽

Cost Overruns ◽

Substantive Content ◽

Infrastructure Policy ◽

Decision Outcomes ◽

Ex Ante

AbstractUsing ex ante analysis to predict policy outcomes is common practice in the world of infrastructure planning. However, accounts of its uses and merits vary widely. Advisory agencies and government think tanks advocate this practice to prevent cost overruns, short-term decision-making and suboptimal choices. Academic studies on knowledge use, on the other hand, are critical of how knowledge can be used in decision making. Research has found that analyses often have no impact at all on decision outcomes or are mainly conducted to provide decision makers with the confidence to decide rather than with objective facts. In this paper, we use an ethnographic research design to understand how it is possible that the use of ex ante analysis can be depicted in such contradictory ways. We suggest that the substantive content of ex ante analysis plays a limited role in understanding its depictions and uses. Instead, it is the process of conducting an ex ante analysis itself that unfolds in such a manner that the analysis can be interpreted and used in many different and seemingly contradictory ways. In policy processes, ex ante analysis is like a chameleon, figuratively changing its appearance based on its environment.

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P075 Travel or cheers? Examining the drivers and mechanisms of home court advantage in the 2020/2021 NBA regular season

SLEEP Advances ◽

10.1093/sleepadvances/zpab014.119 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 2 (Supplement_1) ◽

pp. A45-A45

Author(s):

J Leota ◽

D Hoffman ◽

L Mascaro ◽

M Czeisler ◽

K Nash ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Random Effects ◽

Mixed Models ◽

Fixed Effects ◽

Natural Experiment ◽

National Basketball Association ◽

Home Team ◽

The Road ◽

On The Road ◽

The Impact ◽

The Relationship

Abstract Introduction Home court advantage (HCA) in the National Basketball Association (NBA) is well-documented, yet the co-occurring drivers responsible for this advantage have proven difficult to examine in isolation. The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic resulted in the elimination of crowds in ~50% of games during the 2020/2021 NBA season, whereas travel remained unchanged. Using this ‘natural experiment’, we investigated the impact of crowds and travel-related sleep and circadian disruption on NBA HCA. Methods 1080 games from the 2020/2021 NBA regular season were analyzed using mixed models (fixed effects: crowds, travel; random effects: team, opponent). Results In games with crowds, home teams won 58.65% of the time and outrebounded (M=2.28) and outscored (M=2.18) their opponents. In games without crowds, home teams won significantly less (50.60%, p = .01) and were outrebounded (M=-0.41, p < .001) and outscored (M=-0.13, p < .05) by their opponents. Further, the increase in home rebound margin fully mediated the relationship between crowds and home points margin (p < .001). No significant sleep or circadian effects were observed. Discussion Taken together, these results suggest that HCA in the 2020/2021 NBA season was predominately driven by the presence of crowds and their influence on the effort exerted by the home team to rebound the ball. Moreover, we speculate that the strict NBA COVID-19 policies may have mitigated the travel-related sleep and circadian effects on the road team. These findings are of considerable significance to a domain wherein marginal gains can have immense competitive, financial, and even historical consequences.

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DEONTOLOGY, THRESHOLDS, AND EFFICIENCY

Legal Theory ◽

10.1017/s1352325211000176 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 17 (4) ◽

pp. 301-317 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Christopher T. Wonnell

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Degrees Of Freedom ◽

Moral Judgments ◽

Rule Following ◽

Threshold Functions ◽

Ex Post ◽

Ex Ante ◽

The Many ◽

The Relationship ◽

Public Decision

This article explores four topics raised by Eyal Zamir and Barak Medina's treatment of constrained deontology. First, it examines whether mathematical threshold functions are the proper way to think about limits on deontology, given the discontinuities of our moral judgments and the desired phenomenology of rule-following. Second, it asks whether constrained deontology is appropriate for public as well as private decision-making, taking issue with the book's conclusion that deontological options are inapplicable to public decision-making, whereas deontological constraints are applicable. Third, it examines the issue of the relationship between deontology and efficiency, asking whether deontological constraints should yield in situations where everyone would expect to benefit from their suspension, either ex ante or ex post. Finally, the article concludes that constrained deontology is susceptible to political abuse because of the many degrees of freedom involved in identifying constrained actions and the point at which those constraints yield to consequentialist benefits.

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How should we regulate artificial intelligence?

Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society A Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences ◽

10.1098/rsta.2017.0360 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 376 (2128) ◽

pp. 20170360 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Chris Reed

Keyword(s):

Artificial Intelligence ◽

Neural Networks ◽

Decision Making ◽

Current System ◽

General System ◽

Fundamental Rights ◽

Ex Post ◽

Ex Ante ◽

Human Decision

Using artificial intelligence (AI) technology to replace human decision-making will inevitably create new risks whose consequences are unforeseeable. This naturally leads to calls for regulation, but I argue that it is too early to attempt a general system of AI regulation. Instead, we should work incrementally within the existing legal and regulatory schemes which allocate responsibility, and therefore liability, to persons. Where AI clearly creates risks which current law and regulation cannot deal with adequately, then new regulation will be needed. But in most cases, the current system can work effectively if the producers of AI technology can provide sufficient transparency in explaining how AI decisions are made. Transparency ex post can often be achieved through retrospective analysis of the technology's operations, and will be sufficient if the main goal is to compensate victims of incorrect decisions. Ex ante transparency is more challenging, and can limit the use of some AI technologies such as neural networks. It should only be demanded by regulation where the AI presents risks to fundamental rights, or where society needs reassuring that the technology can safely be used. Masterly inactivity in regulation is likely to achieve a better long-term solution than a rush to regulate in ignorance. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘The growing ubiquity of algorithms in society: implications, impacts and innovations'.

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