Do Football Teams Learn from Changing Coaches? A Test of the Deceleration Hypothesis

Abstract

The paper explores the nature of change and finds evidence in favor of deceleration hypothesis: prior changes of a given type decrease the likelihood of a subsequent change of the same type while controlling for unobserved heterogeneity. We analyze leadership changes by explaining factors that influence football teams to replace their coaches. We use panel data for 33 National Football League’s teams from 1976 to 2008.