DataPoints: Family Violence and Football
Nothing gets an economist's adrenalin flowing like a correlation. These folks appear to have found a juicy one, and I suspect we'll be hearing more about it soon.
Family Violence and Football: The Effect of Unexpected Emotional Cues on Violent Behavior
...We test this hypothesis using data on police reports of family violence on Sundays during the professional football season. Controlling for location and time fixed effects, weather factors, the pre-game point spread, and the size of the local viewing audience, we find that upset losses by the home team (losses in games that the home team was predicted to win by more than 3 points) lead to an 8 percent increase in police reports of at-home male-on-female intimate partner violence. There is no corresponding effect on female-on-male violence. Consistent with the behavioral prediction that losses matter more than gains, upset victories by the home team have (at most) a small dampening effect on family violence. We also find that unexpected losses in highly salient or frustrating games have a 50% to 100% larger impact on rates of family violence...
Interesting study although it's not clear what the remedy is. Maybe more public service announcements if the home team starts losing?
Also in the "economics of football" series, the WSJ had an interesting article debating the impact of helmets on head injuries. It's essentially a moral hazard argument: ...there may be a greater prevalence of head injuries in the American game because the players hit each other with forces up to 100% greater. "If they didn't have helmets on, they wouldn't do that," he says. "They know they'd injure themselves."
Sounds like the banking industry isn't alone in considering the effects that regulation and insurance can have on incentives and outcomes.
WSJ article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704402404574527881984299454.html