Strike three
Subtitle: umpires' demand for discrimination
By: Christopher A. Parsons ... [et al.].
Contributors: Parsons, Christopher A.; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series -- working paper 13665; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) -- working paper no. 13665.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Description: "We explore umpires' racial/ethnic preferences in the evaluation of Major League Baseball pitchers.  Controlling for umpire, pitcher, batter and catcher fixed effects and many other factors, strikes are more likely to be called if the umpire and pitcher match race/ethnicity.  This effect only exists where there is little scrutiny of umpires' behavior -- in ballparks without computerized systems monitoring umpires' calls, at poorly attended games, and when the called pitch cannot determine the outcome of the at-bat.  If a pitcher shares the home-plate umpire's race/ethnicity, he gives up fewer runs per game and improves his team's chance of winning.  The results suggest that standard measures of salary discrimination that adjust for measured productivity may generally be flawed.  We derive the magnitude of the bias generally and apply it to several examples"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Title from PDF file as viewed on 6/5/2008.

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