%0 Report
        %A Grund, Christian
%A Höcker, Jan
%A Zimmermann, Stefan
        %T Risk Taking Behavior in Tournaments: Evidence from the NBA
        %D 2010
        %8 2010 Mar
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 4812
        %U https://www.iza.org/publications/dp4812
        %X We empirically explore the relevance of risk taking behavior in tournaments. We make use of data from the NBA season 2007/2008 and measure risk taking by the fraction of three-point shots. Current heterogeneity of teams is taken into account by intermediate results. It turns out that indeed teams who are behind increase the risk in terms of more three-point attempts. We additionally analyze the consequences of this change in behavior. Enhanced risk taking is inefficient for the vast majority of cases and only beneficial in terms of a higher winning probability if a team is behind with a rather large amount of points. We discuss possible explanations for these decision errors.
        %K risk taking
%K NBA
%K basketball
%K tournaments