An empirical study on risk-taking in tournaments

Individuals faced by a tournament can often not only choose their effort level, but also the risk level of their strategy. There are some theoretical contributions on risk-taking in tournaments, which mainly point out disadvantages with respect to exerted effort. Empirical evidence is rare. This letter analyses the risk-taking behaviour of professional soccer coaches. It is found that risk-taking concerning the kind of observed substitutions is, indeed, relevant. However, risk-taking does not pay off.