Зайцева_резюме_ENG (Социальный капитал как фактор успеха национальных сборных (на примере футбола))

National Research University Higher School of EconomicsInna ZaytsevaROLE OF SOCIAL CAPITAL IN THE PERFORMANCE OFNATIONAL TEAMS (THE CASE OF SOCCER)PhD Dissertation Summaryfor the purpose of obtaining academic degreeDoctor of Philosophy in Economics HSEAcademic Supervisor:PhD Leonid PolischukJEL: Z20, Z22, Z28Moscow – 2018The research goalThe overarching goal of this thesis is to demonstrate theoretically and to estimateempirically the role of social capital in the national soccer teams’ performance.MotivationThe goal of the thesis is achieved at the intersection of two actively developing researchareas of applied economics – sports economics, and economic studies of social capital(understood as the ability of groups and communities to act collectively for a common goal).An introduction of cultural factors in the number of key prerequisites for sustainabledevelopment and socio-economic efficiency has led to a radical rethinking of the notion of"wealth of nations" and was comparable to the awareness of the role of institutions ineconomy and society.

Over the past decades, the academic literature has presentedconvincing evidence of the importance of social capital for economic growth, social welfare,trade and investment, the effectiveness of economic and political institutions, education,health, urban development and other spheres of human activity, however the professionalsport is still absent in this list. Thus, the expansion of such an analysis to sports is highlyrelevant.Sport is considered by international organizations as an effective tool of economicdevelopment (Beutler, 2008) and at the same time contributes to the accumulation of humancapital, social mobility and poverty reduction (Beutler, 2008; Seippel, 2006).

In the sportseconomics much attention is paid to the motivation of athletes and the success factors ofnational teams in the international arena – such factors include economic conditions, historyand geography, and other variables, among which, however, social capital has not yet figuredprominently.

Meanwhile, there is a clear reason to expect that, by virtue of its definition as aresource of collective action, social capital should be an essential factor of success in teamsports. The thesis examines the role of social capital in success of national soccer teams,thereby filling the existing gap in the literature on incentives and mechanism of the formationof success in soccer teams.MethodologyTo achieve the goal of the research, the thesis specifies the channels and mechanismsfor the possible impact of social capital as a factor of soccer teams’ success, including theinteraction of social capital with other factors. A custom-tailored theoretical model developedin the dissertation is used to formulate the main hypotheses of the research which aresubsequently submitted to empirical verification using various data sources.Social capital matters for the performance of football teams is comprised, firstly, byaffecting players’ incentives to exert efforts for the sake of team success in a situation whereindividual efforts do not receive significant material rewards.

Secondly, social capitalprovides the members of national team with skills and ability to coordinate efforts in an adhoc team formed to solve a short-term task, without accumulated experience of joint activitywhich is available in football clubs.A theoretical model that incorporates these channels of influence yields the conclusionsthat, firstly, social capital in a team contributes to its success, and, what is especiallyimportant, it increases the return to talent of soccer players and creates the prerequisites foreffective realization of individual abilities of team members.Empirical verification of the above conjectures generated by the theoretical modelrequires measures of team performance, as well as the talent of its participants and socialcapital in the team.

The first two measures are derived from football statistics, while for thethird one cross-country survey data are used. This approach to measuring social capital innational teams is justified, among other things, by a special test making use of the results ofthe Football World Cup held in Russia in 2018.Empirical analyses presented in the thesis show that the complex multi-dimensionalanalysis of soccer teams’ success can be reduced to two kea variables – the strength ofplayers and their willingness and ability to jointly exert efforts for the sake of commonsuccess, while the previous literature considered numerous economic, geographical, politicaland other factors. Estimations of the contribution of these tow variables to the results ofnational soccer teams produces results which are fully consistent with the conclusions oftheory developed in this thesis.Brief literature reviewThe problem of collective action is in the focus of attention of economists since thepublication of the book with the same title by M.

Olson (Olson, 1965). A wide body ofresearch focuses on possible market failures due to the gap between individual rationality andcollective benefits. Description of equilibria in the problem of collective action andassessment of efficiency losses due to insufficient incentives and lack of coordinationbetween participants have become classical parts of the microeconomic theory (see, forexample, Bergstrom, Blum, Varian, 1986). Analysis of this problem has been extended tosituations in which the overall result can be divided between participants for privateconsumption, as well as to the issue of sharing mechanisms that could bring players closer tothe public optimum (Holmstrom, 1982).

Particular attention is paid to the case of nonobservable efforts in the context of principal-agent relations, when the team works in theinterests of a third party, and to moral hazard in teams (ibid). The incentives of participantsmotivated by career concerns and interested in creating favorable expectations regarding theirhuman capital endowments are studied (Auriol, Friebel, Pechlivanos, 2002; Meagher, Prasad,2016).Individual behavior in situations of collective action observed in practice and in thelaboratory often demonstrates a greater level of individual efforts and cooperation thanpredicted by theories in which the behavior of participants is motivated solely by privategain. In this connection, theories that allow for pro-social motivation of the participants havebeen developed, based on assumptions of collectivism and cohesion between teammates, whofeel and value their belonging to the collective and society as a whole and are driven byaltruism (Andreoni, 2006; Benabou, Tirole, 2006).

These research areas are being part of theeconomic theory of social capital, formalizing normative and behavioral prerequisites forcooperation in a team and the society, as well as the expectations and conventions arising insuch cases.The extensive and growing empirical literature based on this theory provides numerousevidences of tangible returns to social capital at micro, meso and macro levels, as well as invarious areas of the economy, public administration and the social sphere (see, for example,Guiso et al., 2006; Gorodnichenko, Roland, 2011; Putnam, 1993; Greif, 2006; Greif andTabellini, 2010, etc.).

At the same time, the role of social capital in small groups, where itdirectly contributes to solving the problem of collective action, receives less attention in theliterature. In particular, the existing papers of other authors hardly consider the role of socialcapital in team sports.Conversely, numerous empirical studies of success factors in team sports (Leeds,Leeds, 2009, Berlinschi at all., 2013), as already noted, do not explicitly consider socialcapital among such factors. In such research, sports teams are often considered as "blackboxes", transforming various resources into the results of games, points in tournaments,rankings, etc.

Attempts to "look inside" such "black boxes" and explicitly investigate themotivation of players and their interaction with each other are scarce – see, for example,(Hoffman at al., 2002; Macmillan, Smith, 2007; Houston, Wilson, 2002).It can be concluded that while there is indirect evidence in the existing literature of theimportance of social capital for success in team sports, including soccer, this issue has not yetbeen tackled and explored explicitly and directly.Object and subject of the researchThe object of the dissertation research is the performance of national soccer teams.There are several important reasons for this research object to be chosen.Firstly, soccer belongs to the so-called interactive sports, when players actively interactwith each other during the match, and the success of the team largely depends on the qualityof such interaction, which in turn is related to the stock of social capital in the team.