Conflicts of Interest Distort Public Evaluations: Evidence from the Top 25 Ballots of NCAA Football Coaches

This paper provides a study on conflicts of interest among college football coaches participating in the USA Today Coaches Poll of top 25 teams. The Poll provides a unique empirical setting that overcomes many of the challenges inherent in conflict of interest studies, because many agents are evaluating the same thing, private incentives to distort evaluations are clearly defined and measurable, and there exists an alternative source of computer rankings that is bias free. Using individual coach ballots between 2005 and 2010, we find that coaches distort their rankings to reflect their own team's reputation and financial interests. On average, coaches rank teams from their own athletic conference nearly a full position more favorably and boost their own team's ranking more than two full positions. Coaches also rank teams they defeated more favorably, thereby making their own team look better. When it comes to ranking teams contending for one of the high-profile Bowl Championship Series (BCS) games, coaches favor those teams that generate higher financial payoffs for their own team. Reflecting the structure of payoff disbursements, coaches from non-BCS conferences band together, while those from BCS conferences more narrowly favor teams in their own conference. Among all coaches an additional payoff between $3.3 and$5 million induces a more favorable ranking of one position. Moreover, for each increase in a contending team's payoff equal to 10 percent of a coach's football budget, coaches respond with more favorable rankings of half a position, and this effect is more than twice as large when coaches rank teams outside the top 10.

When More is Better-Design Principles for Prediction Markets in Defense Acquisition Cost Forecasting

Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research Progra

How Weapon Systems are Like Jelly Beans : Prediction Markets as an Information Aggregation Tool for Effective Project Management in Defense Acquisition Projects

Symposium Presentation (for Acquisition Research Program)Symposium PresentationAcquisition Research ProgramApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Managing the Risks of Contracting for Comples Contracts

Symposium Presentation (for Acquisition Research Program)Symposium PresentationNaval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research ProgramApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Perspectives on Disconnects Between Scientific Information and Management Decisions on Post-fire Recovery in Western US

Environmental regulations frequently mandate the use of "best available" science, but ensuring that it is used in decisions around the use and protection of natural resources is often challenging. In the Western US, this relationship between science and management is at the forefront of post-fire land management decisions. Recent fires, post-fire threats (e.g. flooding, erosion), and the role of fire in ecosystem health combine to make post-fire management highly visible and often controversial. This paper uses post-fire management to present a framework for understanding why disconnects between science and management decisions may occur. We argue that attributes of agencies, such as their political or financial incentives, can limit how effectively science is incorporated into decision-making. At the other end of the spectrum, the lack of synthesis or limited data in science can result in disconnects between science-based analysis of post-fire effects and agency policy and decisions. Disconnects also occur because of the interaction between the attributes of agencies and the attributes of science, such as their different spatial and temporal scales of interest. After offering examples of these disconnects in post-fire treatment, the paper concludes with recommendations to reduce disconnects by improving monitoring, increasing synthesis of scientific findings, and directing social-science research toward identifying and deepening understanding of these disconnects