Date of Award
8-2018
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Economics
Committee Member
Dr. Raymond Sauer, Committee Chair
Committee Member
Dr. Scott Templeton
Committee Member
Dr. Robert Fleck
Abstract
The focus of this paper is to summarize the economic literature of the hot hand phenomenon in basketball while adding in another study of my own. By using recent NBA statistical data, I will show the advancement and evolution of this widely held public belief that a certain number of makes or misses can alter the chances of the next attempt's success or failure. I start by recreating part of Gilovich, Valone, and Tversky's (1985) experiments with a larger set of data and finish by introducing Miller and Sanjurjo's fix to their method's biases(2015). The major finding is when a three and an eight percentage point correction for the bias from Miller and Sanjurjo's calculations are applied to my data set as well as many other studies, that a hot hand effect starts to surface more frequently. This important correction allows us to flip the hot hand myth from a "cognitive illusion" to a potentially significant effect on gameplay.
Recommended Citation
Dahlstrom, Alexander T., "The Hot Hand Phenomenon in Basketball Revisited" (2018). All Theses. 2952.
https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses/2952