Air quality and employee performance in teams: Evidence from the NFL

Brad R Humphreys; Jane E Ruseski

doi:10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101310

Air quality and employee performance in teams: Evidence from the NFL

Econ Hum Biol. 2023 Dec:51:101310. doi: 10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101310. Epub 2023 Oct 5.

Authors

Brad R Humphreys¹, Jane E Ruseski²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Economics, John Chambers College of Business and Economics, PO Box 6025, Morgantown WV 26506-6025, United States of America. Electronic address: brhumphreys@mail.wvu.edu.
² Department of Economics, John Chambers College of Business and Economics, PO Box 6025, Morgantown WV 26506-6025, United States of America. Electronic address: jeruseski@mail.wvu.edu.

PMID: 37832258
DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101310

Abstract

Emerging research documents the impact of poor air quality on employee performance in a number of settings, including sport. Unlike other settings, sports teams have limited ability to influence previously scheduled games, making air quality exogenous to unobservable factors affecting game outcomes. We link play-level data from National Football League (NFL) games to data from air quality monitoring stations located near NFL stadiums. Results using data from about 90,000 offensive plays in 900 NFL games indicate that yards gained per offensive play increase with PM_2.5 concentration. Defensive players are relatively more affected by air quality than offensive players.

Keywords: Air quality; Employee health; Team productivity.

MeSH terms

Football*
Humans