The Sports Economist picks up on the economic impact of Tiger’s expected absence from professional golf tournaments this year.
But it may be a boon to academia. I previously blogged about Jen Brown’s research on “the Tiger Woods effect” as evidence of strategic effort in contests. In tournaments with Tiger Woods present, the rest of the field performs noticably worse than in tournaments in which he was absent. While that study was careful to note and account for the possibility that Tiger’s absence (by choice) from a tournament might be correlated with some unobservable factor that could bias the conclusion, these concerns are always present.
Fortunately, over the next year we will have a nice natural experiment due to the fact that Tiger’s absence will represent truly independent variation. Looking forward to seeing an update on the Tiger Woods effect. (Trilby toss: Matt Notowidigdo.)
Cheap Talk 
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January 31, 2010 at 1:42 pm
ju
I would be interested in another “Tiger Woods effect”… I suspect Roger Federer is a winner in this one. All luxury goods that had Woods on their publicity must be making him offers, I’d like to see the number of adds Federer is on before and after the Woods scandal…
February 5, 2010 at 11:13 am
William Witman
The “Tiger Woods Effect” eh? You may be, or Jen Brown may be, on to something there. But I think previously it was simply referred to as “Being a Man Effect”!!