IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/4326.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Pay, productivity and aging in Major League Baseball

Author

Listed:
  • Turner, Chad
  • Hakes, Jahn

Abstract

Using panels of player pay and performance from Major League Baseball (MLB), we examine trends in player productivity and salaries as players age. Pooling players of all ability levels leads to a systematic bias in regression coefficients. After addressing this problem by dividing players into talent quintiles, we find that the best players peak about two years later than marginal players, and development and depreciation of ability appear to be more pronounced for players with the highest peak ability levels. Within-career variation, however, is less pronounced than between-player variation, and the talent level of players within a given quintile will typically remain lower than the talent level for rookies in the next higher quintile. Free agents are paid proportionately with their production at all ability levels, whereas young players’ salaries are suppressed by similar amounts.

Suggested Citation

  • Turner, Chad & Hakes, Jahn, 2007. "Pay, productivity and aging in Major League Baseball," MPRA Paper 4326, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:4326
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/4326/1/MPRA_paper_4326.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lawrence M. Kahn, 2006. "Race, Performance, Pay, and Retention Among National Basketball Association Head Coaches," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 7(2), pages 119-149, May.
    2. Scully, Gerald W, 1974. "Pay and Performance in Major League Baseball," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(6), pages 915-930, December.
    3. Krohn, Gregor A, 1983. "Measuring the Experience-Productivity Relationship: The Case of Major League Baseball," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 1(4), pages 273-279, October.
    4. Fair Ray C, 2008. "Estimated Age Effects in Baseball," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-41, January.
    5. David J. Berri & Rob Simmons, 2009. "Race and the Evaluation of Signal Callers in the National Football League," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 10(1), pages 23-43, February.
    6. Jahn K. Hakes & Raymond D. Sauer, 2006. "An Economic Evaluation of the Moneyball Hypothesis," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(3), pages 173-186, Summer.
    7. Brad R. Humphreys, 2000. "Equal Pay on the Hardwood: The Earnings Gap Between Male and Female NCAA Division I Basketball Coaches," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 1(3), pages 299-307, August.
    8. Lawrence M. Kahn, 1991. "Discrimination in Professional Sports: A Survey of the Literature," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 44(3), pages 395-418, April.
    9. Claude Vincent & Byron Eastman, 2009. "Determinants of Pay in the NHL," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 10(3), pages 256-277, June.
    10. Ira Horowitz & Christopher Zappe, 1998. "Thanks for the memories: baseball veterans' end-of-career salaries," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(6), pages 377-382.
    11. Kahn, Lawrence M, 1993. "Free Agency, Long-Term Contracts and Compensation in Major League Baseball: Estimates from Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 75(1), pages 157-164, February.
    12. Daniel R. Marburger, 2004. "Arbitrator Compromise in Final Offer Arbitration: Evidence from Major League Baseball," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 42(1), pages 60-68, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chih-Hai Yang & Hsuan-Yu Lin & Chiang-Ping Chen, 2014. "Measuring the efficiency of NBA teams: additive efficiency decomposition in two-stage DEA," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 217(1), pages 565-589, June.
    2. Rachel Scarfe & Carl Singleton & Adesola Sunmoni & Paul Telemo, 2024. "The age‐wage‐productivity puzzle: Evidence from the careers of top earners," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 62(2), pages 584-606, April.
    3. Geoffrey N Tuck & Athol R Whitten, 2013. "Lead Us Not into Tanktation: A Simulation Modelling Approach to Gain Insights into Incentives for Sporting Teams to Tank," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(11), pages 1-10, November.
    4. Wiseman Frederick & Chatterjee Sangit, 2010. "Negotiating Salaries through Quantile Regression," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 1-15, January.
    5. Martina Gianecchini & Alberto Alvisi, 2015. "Late career of superstar soccer players: win, play, or gain?," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0192, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    6. Nikolaos, Chatzistamoulou & Theodoros, Antonakis & Konstantinos, Kounetas, 2020. "Salary cap and National Basketball Association teams' productive performance. A two stage Data Envelopment Analysis approach under a metatechnology framework," MPRA Paper 98811, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Nikos Chatzistamoulou & Kounetas Kostas & Antonakis Theodor, 2022. "Salary Cap, Organizational Gap, and Catch-up in the Performance of NBA Teams: A Two-Stage DEA Model Under Heterogeneity," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 23(2), pages 123-155, February.
    8. Michael R. Ward & Alexander D. Harmon, 2019. "ESport Superstars," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(8), pages 987-1013, December.
    9. R Simmons & D Berri, 2007. "Does it pay to specialize? The story from the Gridiron," Working Papers 591134, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    10. Brian M. Mills, 2017. "Policy Changes In Major League Baseball: Improved Agent Behavior And Ancillary Productivity Outcomes," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(2), pages 1104-1118, April.
    11. Turner, Chad & Hakes, Jahn Karl, 2007. "The Collective Bargaining Effects of NBA Player Productivity Dynamics," MPRA Paper 5058, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Jahn K. Hakes & Chad Turner, 2008. "Long-Term Contracts in Major League Baseball," Working Papers 0831, International Association of Sports Economists;North American Association of Sports Economists.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Turner, Chad & Hakes, Jahn Karl, 2007. "The Collective Bargaining Effects of NBA Player Productivity Dynamics," MPRA Paper 5058, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Salaga, Steven & Juravich, Matthew, 2020. "National Football League head coach race, performance, retention, and dismissal," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 978-991.
    3. Alex Bryson & Bernd Frick & Rob Simmons, 2009. "The Returns to Scarce Talent: Footedness and Player Remuneration in European Soccer," CEP Discussion Papers dp0948, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    4. Rodney Fort & Young Hoon Lee & Taeyeon Oh, 2019. "Quantile Insights on Market Structure and Worker Salaries: The Case of Major League Baseball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(8), pages 1066-1087, December.
    5. Alex Bryson & Bernd Frick & Rob Simmons, 2013. "The Returns to Scarce Talent," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 14(6), pages 606-628, December.
    6. Hamrick Jeff & Rasp John, 2011. "Using Local Correlation to Explain Success in Baseball," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 7(4), pages 1-29, October.
    7. Lawrence M. Kahn, 2009. "The Economics of Discrimination: Evidence from Basketball," NCER Working Paper Series 40, National Centre for Econometric Research.
    8. John Charles Bradbury, 2007. "Does the Baseball Labor Market Properly Value Pitchers?," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 8(6), pages 616-632, December.
    9. Lawrence M. Kahn, 2000. "The Sports Business as a Labor Market Laboratory," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 75-94, Summer.
    10. Thomas Zimmerfaust, 2018. "Are Workers Willing To Pay To Join A Better Team?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(2), pages 1278-1295, April.
    11. Holmes, Paul, 2011. "New evidence of salary discrimination in major league baseball," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 320-331, June.
    12. Terry, Ryan P. & McGee, Jeffrey E. & Kass, Malcolm J., 2018. "The not-so-free agent: Non-performance factors that contribute to free agent compensation premiums," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 189-201.
    13. AC. Krautmann & E. Gustafson & L. Hadley, 2000. "Who pays for minor league training costs?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 18(1), pages 37-47, January.
    14. Franziska Prockl & Bernd Frick, 2018. "Wage Determination In A Regulated Labor Market: Empirical Evidence From Major League Soccer," Working Papers Dissertations 39, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    15. Quinn Andrew Wesley Keefer, 2013. "Compensation Discrimination for Defensive Players," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 14(1), pages 23-44, February.
    16. Hsuan-Yu Lin & Chih-Hai Yang, 2016. "Uncertainty, specific investment, and contract duration: evidence from the MLB player market," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 50(3), pages 1009-1028, May.
    17. Fort, Rodney & Maxcy, Joel & Diehl, Mark, 2016. "Uncertainty by regulation: Rottenberg׳s invariance principle," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(3), pages 454-467.
    18. Joshua M. Congdon-Hohman & Jonathan A. Lanning, 2018. "Beyond Moneyball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(7), pages 1046-1061, October.
    19. Mark D. Woolway, 1997. "Using an Empirically Estimated Production Function for Major League Baseball to Examine Worker Disincentives Associated with Multi-Year Contracts," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 41(2), pages 77-83, October.
    20. Carlo Bellavite Pellegrini & Raul Caruso & Marco Di Domizio, 2021. "Relative wages, payroll structure and performance in soccer. Evidence from Italian Serie A (2007-2019)," DISCE - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Politica Economica dipe0015, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Major League Baseball (MLB); career dynamics; player salaries and performance; quintile analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:4326. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.