August 2020

IZA DP No. 13578: Experimental Effects of an Absent Crowd on Performances and Refereeing Decisions during COVID-19

published as 'Causal effects of an absent crowd on performances and refereeing decisions during Covid-19' in: Economic Letters , 2021, 198, 109664

The Covid-19 pandemic has induced worldwide natural experiments on the effects of crowds. We exploit one of these experiments currently taking place over several countries in almost identical settings: professional football matches played behind closed doors. We find large and statistically significant effects on the number of yellow cards issued by referees. Without a crowd, fewer cards were awarded to the away teams, reducing home advantage. These results have implications for the influence of social pressure and crowds on the neutrality of refereeing decisions.