Study of N.B.A. Sees Racial Bias in Calling Fouls

While Michael linked to the paper below, it is also the subject of a NY Times article entitled Study of N.B.A. Sees Racial Bias in Calling Fouls.  Two highlights from the article:  First, the caption under the headlining photo--"Minnesota Timberwolves guard Mike James, left, said he did not think he was treated differently by white and black officials"--says a lot about the need for systematic empirical inquiry.  Second, the NY Times engaged in peer-review--"Three independent experts asked by The Times to examine the Wolfers-Price paper and materials released by the N.B.A. said they considered the Wolfers-Price argument far more sound."  The article also discusses multivariate regression and  Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban's viewpoint on statistics.  It's a must read!!!

Comments

[frankcross]

The article certainly has gotten play. Here's an ELS connection. The authors had to use the composition of the full referee panel to do the study, because they couldn't get data on the calls of individual refs. So the white vs. black findings were based on panel percentages, not direct calls by individual ref.

This has some parallel to some judicial research. Because the government won't release judge specific data, some guessing is required for use of the AOC. Schanzenbach & Tiller did a study of sentencing, in which they initially could characterize individual district courts as X% Republican or Democrat. They subsequently were able to associate individual judges with sentences pretty well, through a painstaking search of PACER, and got similar conclusions. This is soon to be published in UChiLR, along with a plea for the government to release more data.

Also, there is the possibility of panel effects, that one black ref on a panel could influence the decisions of white refs.