TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Grund, Christian
AU  - Höcker, Jan
AU  - Zimmermann, Stefan
        TI  - Risk Taking Behavior in Tournaments: Evidence from the NBA
        PY  - 2010/Mar/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 4812
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp4812
        AB  - 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.
        KW  - risk taking
KW  - NBA
KW  - basketball
KW  - tournaments
        ER  -