Re: Study sees racial bias in calling fouls
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To investigate whether such bias has existed in sports, Mr. Wolfers and Mr. Price examined data from publicly available box scores. They accounted for factors like the players’ positions, playing time and All-Star status; each group’s time on the court (black players played 83 percent of minutes, while 68 percent of officials were white); calls at home games and on the road; and other relevant data.
But they said they continued to find the same phenomenon: that players who were similar in all ways except skin color drew foul calls at a rate difference of up to 4 ½ percent depending on the racial composition of an N.B.A. game’s three-person referee crew.
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All they did was look in the box scores, not a which ref called which foul, but whether the "crew" (already deemed either "white" or "black") called a foul?
The conclusion section of the paper on page 31 states "we test whether players of a given race receive fewer fouls when more of the referees present are of the same race"
I only skimmed the paper- how significant is the conclusion "up to 4%"?
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