The School of Economics at the University of Nottingham brings you another instalment of its public lectures series.
We are delighted to welcome Professor James Reade from the University of Reading. James’ talk will revisit his research on home advantage in football, in the light of the shock brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Life in 2020 has been like nothing we’ve seen for 100 years. Economics as a profession has been playing catch up, since by and large, the profession didn’t really exist during the last major global pandemic, Spanish Flu, and much understanding had not been retained. As with all economics, a particularly useful area to study is sport, and football in particular, because of the abundance of data - number of people doing things, decisions that people made, and outcomes, all things economists care about.
In this talk, James will talk about research carried out looking at how Covid-19 has impacted the playing of sport - there hasn’t been any fans in stadiums, by and large, and this makes a difference. This matters for our understanding of social pressure and how it works to influence decisions. He will also talk about research to understand the role that sports events, as mass outdoor (and indoor) events, can play in the spread of a virus. Because sports events take place regularly, and all across the country, they provide a lot of information that can help to understand how a virus might spread.