Social Science Statistics Blog

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13 April 2009

Alley-oops as workplace cooperation

Here's a paper for the "high internal, low external validity" file (via Kevin Lewis):

Interracial Workplace Cooperation: Evidence from the NBA

Joseph Price, Lars Lefgren & Henry Tappen
NBER Working Paper, February 2009

Abstract:
Using data from the National Basketball Association (NBA), we examine
whether patterns of workplace cooperation occur disproportionately
among workers of the same race. We find that, holding constant the
composition of teammates on the floor, basketball players are no more
likely to complete an assist to a player of the same race than a
player of a different race. Our confidence interval allows us to
reject even small amounts of same-race bias in passing patterns. Our
findings suggest that high levels of interracial cooperation can occur
in a setting where workers are operating in a highly visible setting
with strong incentives to behave efficiently.

Posted by Andy Eggers at 6:51 PM