Designing Fair Tiebreak Mechanisms: The Case of FIFA Penalty Shootouts

56 Pages Posted: 10 Feb 2015

See all articles by Nejat Anbarci

Nejat Anbarci

Durham University, Department of Economics and Finance; Durham University, Department of Economics and Finance

Ching-Jen Sun

Deakin University - Department of Economics

M. Utku Ünver

Boston College - Department of Economics

Date Written: January 1, 2015

Abstract

In the current FIFA penalty shootout mechanism, a coin toss decides which team will kick first. Empirical evidence suggests that the team taking the first kick has a higher probability to win a shootout. We design sequentially fair shootout mechanisms such that in all symmetric Markov-perfect equilibria each of the skill-balanced teams has exactly 50% chance to win whenever the score is tied at any round. Consistent with empirical evidence, we show that the current mechanism is not sequentially fair and characterize all sequentially fair mechanisms. Taking additional desirable properties into consideration, we propose and uniquely characterize a practical mechanism.

Keywords: Fairness, mechanism design, soccer, penalty shootouts, market design, axiomatic approach

JEL Classification: D63, C79, D47

Suggested Citation

Anbarci, Nejat and Sun, Ching-Jen and Ünver, M. Utku, Designing Fair Tiebreak Mechanisms: The Case of FIFA Penalty Shootouts (January 1, 2015). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2558979 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2558979

Nejat Anbarci

Durham University, Department of Economics and Finance ( email )

Old Elvet
Mill Hill Lane
Durham, Durham DH1 3HP
United Kingdom

Durham University, Department of Economics and Finance ( email )

Old Elvet
Mill Hill Lane
Durham, Durham DH1 3HP
United Kingdom

Ching-Jen Sun

Deakin University - Department of Economics ( email )

Burwood, Victoria 3215
Australia

M. Utku Ünver (Contact Author)

Boston College - Department of Economics ( email )

140 Commonwealth Avenue
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
United States

HOME PAGE: http://sites.bc.edu/utku-unver

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