This paper contributes to the expanding literature that investigates the effects of the introduction of a three-points-for-a-win rule in football. To this end, it provides empirical evidence of the effect of the rule on Italy’s most prestigious football league. Our analysis uses data collected over a long period of time and relies on pooled regressions and a regression discontinuity design. The findings provide evidence that in the case of the Italian league the rule worked as expected, unlike what previous contributions have found when looking at other national football leagues.
AylottM.AylottN. (2007). A meeting of social science and football: Measuring the effects of three points for a win. Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics, 10, 205–222.
2.
BaroncelliA.LagoU. (2006). Italian football. Journal of Sports Economics, 7(1), 13–28.
3.
BaroncelliA.CarusoR. (2011). The organization and economics of Italian serie A: A brief overall view. Rivista di diritto ed economia dello sport, 7(2), 67–85.
4.
BrocasI.CarrilloJ. D. (2004). Do the ‘‘three-point victory’’ and ‘‘golden goal’’ rules make soccer more exciting?Journal of Sports Economics, 5, 169–185.
5.
CalonicoS.CattaneoM. D.FarrellM. H.TitiunikR. (2017). Rdrobust: Software for regression discontinuity designs. Stata Journal, 17(2), 372–404.
6.
CalonicoS.CattaneoM. D.FarrellM. H.TitiunikR. (2019). Regression discontinuity designs using covariates. Review of Economics and Statistics, 101(3), 442–451.
7.
CalonicoS.CattaneoM. D.FarrellM. H. (2020a). Coverage error optimal confidence intervals for local polynomial regression. arXiv preprint arXiv:1808.01398.
8.
CalonicoS.CattaneoM. D.FarrellM. H. (2020b). Optimal bandwidth choice for robust bias corrected inference in regression discontinuity designs. Econometrics Journal, 23(2), 192–210.
9.
CrolleyL.HandD. (2006). Football and European identity: historical narratives through the press. Routledge.
10.
De la CuestaB.ImaiK. (2016). Misunderstandings about the regression discontinuity design in the study of close elections. Annual Review of Political Science, 19, 375–396.
11.
DilgerA.GeyerH. (2009). Are three points for a win really better than two? A comparison of German soccer league and cup games. Journal of Sports Economics, 10, 305–318.
GuedesJ. C.MachadoF. S. (2002). Changing rewards in contests: Has the three-point rule brought more offense to soccer?Empirical Economics, 27, 607–630.
14.
HausmanC.RapsonD. S. (2018). Regression discontinuity in time: Considerations for empirical applications. Annual Review of Resource Economics, 10, 533–552.
LeeD. S.LemieuxT. (2010). Regression discontinuity designs in economics. Journal of Economics Literature, 48, 281–355.
17.
LeeY. H.ParinduriR. (2016). Does the three-point rule make soccer more exciting? Evidence from a regression discontinuity design. Journal of Sports Economics17 (4), 377–395.
18.
MoschiniG. (2010). Incentives and outcomes in a strategic setting: The 3-points-for-a-win system in soccer. Economic Inquiry, 48, 65–79.
19.
Palacious-HuertaI. (2004). Structural breaks during a century of the world’s most popular sport. Statistical Methods and Applications, 13, 241–258.
20.
RohdeM.BreuerC. (2016). Europe’s elite football: Financial growth, sporting success, transfer investment, and private majority investors. International Journal of Financial Studies, 4(2), 12.
21.
StiglerG. J.BeckerG. S. (1977). De gustibus non est disputandum. The American Economic Review, 67(2), 76–90.
22.
ThistlethwaiteD. L.CampbellD. T. (1960). Regression-discontinuity analysis: An alternative to the ex post facto experiment. Journal of Educational Psychology, 51, 309–317.