Description
Book SynopsisA wealth of research in recent decades has seen the economic approach to human behavior extended over many areas previously considered to belong to sociology, political science, law, and other fields. This book uses soccer to test economic theories and document novel human behavior.
Trade Review"[E]njoyably accessible to nonspecialists, especially sports enthusiasts, who will learn a great deal about soccer, economics, and human behavior more generally."--Foreign Affairs "Beautiful Game Theory shows what it is like to think deeply about a sport and to test your ideas with data... [I]t is a book I recommend unconditionally to those economists with even a passing sport."--John Considine, Sportseconomics.org
Table of ContentsIntroduction 1 FIRST HALF 1.Pele Meets John von Neumann in the Penalty Area 9 2.Vernon Smith Meets Messi in the Laboratory 31 3.Lessons for Experimental Design 45 4.Mapping Minimax in the Brain (with Antonio Olivero, Sven Bestmann, Jose Florensa Vila, and Jose Apesteguia) 58 5.Psychological Pressure on the Field and Elsewhere 68 HALFTIME 6.Scoring at Halftime 89 SECOND HALF 7.Favoritism under Social Pressure 107 8.Making the Beautiful Game a Bit Less Beautiful (with Luis Garicano) 124 9.Fear Pitch 151 10.From Argentina without Emotions 164 11.Discrimination: From the Makana Football Association to Europe 174 Acknowledgments 193 References 195 Index 205
