Title: Loss aversion and decision fatigue at the Wimbledon tennis championship

Authors: Graham Mallard

Addresses: Department of Economics, Cheltenham College, Bath Road, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, GL53 7LD, UK; Department of Economics, University of Bath, Claverton Down Rd., Bath BA2 7AY, UK

Abstract: The multinomial logit analysis in this paper, which contributes to the literature that studies economic psychology in the sporting arena, tests for the effects of loss aversion and decision fatigue in the behaviour of professional tennis players as they deliver their first serves in one of the most competitive and lucrative annual tournaments in the world: the Wimbledon championships. It is proposed that the results demonstrate that the behaviour of professional tennis players exhibits loss aversion as they deal with the effects of decision fatigue. The findings have significant implications for the debate about whether experience, competition and high stakes ameliorate the effects of behavioural biases, for the design of behavioural experiments and for the construction of theoretical models of decision making.

Keywords: decision making; loss aversion; decision fatigue; experimental economics; multinomial logit regression; competition; high stakes; experience; prospect theory; Wimbledon tennis championship; economic psychology; professional tennis players; player behaviour; behavioural bias.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBAF.2016.079880

International Journal of Behavioural Accounting and Finance, 2016 Vol.6 No.1, pp.70 - 91

Received: 16 Dec 2015
Accepted: 13 Aug 2016
Published online: 19 Oct 2016 *

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