Strike Three: Umpires' Demand for Discrimination

Abstract

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Judging the Judiciary by the Numbers: Empirical Research on Judges

“…Judges can keep track of their sentences, outcomes of their bail hearings, and the like, to identify sources of inconsistency or bias. Research on umpires in Major League Baseball, for example, demonstrates that home-plate umpires who know their calls are being recorded and scored by machine do not express racial preferences in calling balls and strikes (in contrast to unmonitored umpires) (Parsons et al, 2011). Judges would be well advised to create such information for themselves, as major newspaper organizations today are obtaining and reporting such information.…”

A Decade of Referee Bias against College Football Programs from Historically Black Colleges and Universities

“…Classic research by Frank and Gilovich (1988) revealed that teams in the National Football League (NFL) and National Hockey League (NHL) whose primary jersey color was black were more likely to be penalized during the game in comparison to National Football League (NFL) and National Hockey League (NHL) teams whose primary jersey color was not black. Extant literature on baseball by Parsons, Sulaeman, Yates, and Hamermesh (2011) discovered that "pitches are slightly more likely to be called strikes when the umpire shares the race/ethnicity of the starting pitcher, an effect that is observable only when umpires' behavior is not well monitored" (p. 1,433). Novel scholarship courtesy of Price and Wolfers (2010) looked at the intersection of referee bias and skin color in basketball and found "systematic evidence of an own-race bias" (p. 1,859) that favored basketball players when they were officiated by referees of the same race.…”

Do Recruiters Prefer Applicants with Similar Skills? Evidence from a Randomized Natural Experiment

“…Another example is the study conducted by Prewett-Livingston et al (1996), who find a positive effect of same-race on promotion. In sports, Parsons et al (2008) and Price and Wolfers (2007) find a same-race bias by referees in baseball and basketball respectively. The match between the gender of evaluators and candidates has also attracted attention from economists, although the empirical evidence on this respect is mixed.…”