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I would hope coaches are not reading the Journal of Sports Economics
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No need to worry; no one reads it. At least not people that are not economic profs who need SOMETHING to research and publish. Even then, the only readers of this article are those who want to try and refute it.
As someone with a degree in economics, this is somewhat interesting. I say somewhat since there isn't much economic here -- its mainly statistics.
I haven't read the study, but I'd bet money its flawed for one huge reason: if I, a 6 foot nothing (with the emphasis on nothing) official would be on many games with what is characterized as short, medium, AND tall crews. My height, I'd say about average or maybe slightly below given the height of basketball officials, would not skew the crew average of many games. If I worked with 2 short guys, or 1 short and one average like me, we'd be short. Likewise, if I worked with 2 talls or one tall and one average, we'd probably be a tall crew. I could be the one calling all the fouls -- or to give sufficient weight to the findings of the study, several average guys, all factored in the results could be the ones calling all the fouls. If it can be shown that there are more average guys than short guys, then the average guys, not the short ones, could be the ones causing the skewed numbers.
We don't know who on the crew is calling the fouls if they take it from a per game basis. Tall guys could conceivably call more fouls if they're working with exclusively shorter partners, or could call fewer fouls if they're working with guys of similar heights.
The bottom line is I don't think the author understands how basketball is officiated.