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AIEL 2025


40th Conference of the Italian Association of Labour Economics

Department of Economics, Management and Statistics (DEMS)
University of Milano-Bicocca

Milan, 18-20 September 2025

Emotions and the Sex Market; Evidence from Market Transactions and Football Matches


Presenter

Alessandro Corvasce (University of Milan)


Coauthors

Riccardo Ciacci, Davide Dragone and Filippo Passerini


Abstract

We study the impact of professional football match results on transactions and spending in the commercial sex market. Relying on betting odds, our analysis allows us to decompose this effect into two components: the pure game effect and the emotional channel due to unexpected outcomes. Our findings indicate that unexpected losses of the home team lead to an increase in sex work activity on the day of the match, while expenditures and durations decrease also on the following days. Taken together, our results suggest that the emotional channel dominates the pure game effect.