In case you haven’t heard by now there is a new study out that says white officials in the NBA call more fouls against black players than white players. I guess this had to happen sooner or later. Justin Wolfers an Assistant Professor of Business and Public Policy at the University of Penn’s Wharton School of Business, and Joseph Price, a Cornell graduate in economics,did the study between 1991-2004. What they say in their study is that blck players received from 0.12 to 0.20 more fouls per 48 minutes when the number of white official in a crew went from zero to three.Yeah, this sound like a lot of stupid nonsense,it is. they also said that the diference in calls is large enough that the probability of a team winning is noticeably affected by the make up of the refereeing crew. The Sports Den is going to side with the NBA and its study, you can read it bu clicking on the title of this post.

Ok, this is where The Sports Den throws its two cents in. Are these guys for real? I’ve watched enough basketball to notice that sometimes officials make bad calls no matter what their size , shape, or color. Sometimes a game is decided on a bad call by an official that is out of position to make the right call in the first place, not by the racial make-up.These guys are even trying put the blame in a decrease in scoring and a rise in turnovers on the racial make up of a refereeing crew. Get serious. The decrease in scoring and rise in turnovers couldn’t possibly have anything to do with players that are just not that good. Wolfers and Price are going to present their study to the Society of Labor Economists on Friday, and the American Law and Economics Assosiation on Sunday before submitting it to the National Bureau of Economic Research. Here’s a question, what does this have to do with economics, and public policy for that matter? Can we now blame the decline in housing on Joey Crawford goingoverboard in calling a technical foul on Tim Duncan while he was sitting on the bench. I can even blame the reason I’m unemployed on the lack of foul calls against Steve Nash. New rule, white officials can only call fouls against white players sitting on the bench.

What I really can’t believe is that two so-called Ivy League graduates would spen that much time on an idiotic study like this one. I have a suggestion for justin Wolfers and Joseph Price, do a study on the effect of people who just use racism to make a name and/or money for themselves has on economic and public policy, that would make better sense and be a lot more interesting than this hogwash.

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