- Home
- Publications
- Is Football A Matter Of Life And Death – Or Is It More Important Than That?
Is Football a Matter of Life and Death – Or is it More Important Than That?
Authors
External Authors
MacKerron, G
Related Themes
Macro-Economic Modelling and ForecastingJEL Code
D23, D03, Z20
Paper Category Number
493
Football is the national sport of most of the planet. This paper examines how happy the outcomes of football matches make us. We calibrate these results relative to other activities and estimate the dynamic effects these exogenous events have on our utility over time. We find that football – on average – makes us unhappier – so why would we go through the pain of following a football team. This behavioural choice paradox occupies much of the paper so we investigate why we go on following our teams, even though matches make us more unhappy on average. We examine how much our story changes if we examine the dynamic effects of football matches over time in different hours before and after the game and the extent to which our happiness is influenced by what we would rationally expect the result to be beforehand – as based on the betting odds.
Related Blog Posts
Inflation Still Likely to Fall to 2 per cent or Below Next Month
Huw Dixon
17 Apr 2024
8 min read
What is the Current State of the UK Economy?
Paula Bejarano Carbo
Stephen Millard
26 Feb 2024
7 min read
Related Projects
Related News
Why it’s not worth worrying that the UK has technically entered a recession
26 Feb 2024
4 min read
Related Publications
Recessionary Pressures Receding in the Rearview Mirror as UK Economy Gains Momentum
12 Apr 2024
GDP Trackers