IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp12012.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Career Lotto: Labor Supply in Winner-Take-All Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Grove, Wayne A.

    (Le Moyne College)

  • Jetter, Michael

    (University of Western Australia)

  • Papps, Kerry L.

    (University of Bradford)

Abstract

Are people prone to selecting occupations with highly skewed income distributions despite minuscule chances of success? Assembling a comprehensive pool of potential teenage entrants into professional tennis (a typical winner-take-all market), we construct objective measures of relative ability and earnings projections. We find that prospective tennis professionals are attracted to right-skewed earnings distributions, independent of mean and variance. If skewness in prize money fell to zero, males would be 23% and females 5% less likely to continue pursuing a professional career, on average. Thus, winner-take-all labor markets appear to systematically encourage those with modest talents to pursue long-shot careers.

Suggested Citation

  • Grove, Wayne A. & Jetter, Michael & Papps, Kerry L., 2018. "Career Lotto: Labor Supply in Winner-Take-All Markets," IZA Discussion Papers 12012, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12012
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp12012.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kimball, Miles S, 1990. "Precautionary Saving in the Small and in the Large," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(1), pages 53-73, January.
    2. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Jonathan A. Parker, 2005. "Optimal Expectations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1092-1118, September.
    3. Erik Snowberg & Justin Wolfers, 2010. "Explaining the Favorite-Long Shot Bias: Is it Risk-Love or Misperceptions?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(4), pages 723-746, August.
    4. Facundo Alvaredo & Anthony Atkinson & Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2013. "The Top 1% in International and Historical Perspective," Post-Print halshs-00847231, HAL.
    5. Peter Berkhout & Joop Hartog & Dinand Webbink, 2010. "Compensation for Earnings Risk under Worker Heterogeneity," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 76(3), pages 762-790, January.
    6. Philippe Jehiel, 2018. "Investment Strategy and Selection Bias: An Equilibrium Perspective on Overoptimism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(6), pages 1582-1597, June.
    7. Levon Barseghyan & Francesca Molinari & Ted O'Donoghue & Joshua C. Teitelbaum, 2013. "The Nature of Risk Preferences: Evidence from Insurance Choices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(6), pages 2499-2529, October.
    8. Shlomo Benartzi & Richard H. Thaler, 1995. "Myopic Loss Aversion and the Equity Premium Puzzle," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(1), pages 73-92.
    9. Thomas Philippon & Ariell Reshef, 2012. "Wages and Human Capital in the U.S. Finance Industry: 1909--2006," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(4), pages 1551-1609.
    10. Arcidiacono, Peter & Hotz, V. Joseph & Kang, Songman, 2012. "Modeling college major choices using elicited measures of expectations and counterfactuals," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 166(1), pages 3-16.
    11. Rosen, Sherwin & Sanderson, Allen, 2001. "Labour Markets in Professional Sports," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(469), pages 47-68, February.
    12. Elton, Edwin J & Gruber, Martin J & Blake, Christopher R, 1996. "Survivorship Bias and Mutual Fund Performance," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 9(4), pages 1097-1120.
    13. Harris, Milton & Weiss, Yoram, 1984. "Job Matching with Finite Horizon and Risk Aversion," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(4), pages 758-779, August.
    14. Victor A. Ginsburgh & Jan C. van Ours, 2003. "Expert Opinion and Compensation: Evidence from a Musical Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 289-296, March.
    15. Benjamin L. Collier & Daniel Schwartz & Howard C. Kunreuther & Erwann O. Michel-Kerjan, 2017. "Risk Preferences in Small and Large Stakes: Evidence from Insurance Contract Decisions," NBER Working Papers 23579, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Pedro Bordalo & Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer, 2013. "Salience and Asset Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 623-628, May.
    17. Dertwinkel-Kalt, Markus & Köster, Mats, 2017. "Salient compromises in the newsvendor game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 301-315.
    18. Nicholas Barberis & Ming Huang, 2008. "Stocks as Lotteries: The Implications of Probability Weighting for Security Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 2066-2100, December.
    19. Jianakoplos, Nancy Ammon & Bernasek, Alexandra, 1998. "Are Women More Risk Averse?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 36(4), pages 620-630, October.
    20. Miller, Robert A, 1984. "Job Matching and Occupational Choice," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(6), pages 1086-1120, December.
    21. Cook, Philip J & Clotfelter, Charles T, 1993. "The Peculiar Scale Economies of Lotto," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(3), pages 634-643, June.
    22. Alan B. Krueger, 2005. "The Economics of Real Superstars: The Market for Rock Concerts in the Material World," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(1), pages 1-30, January.
    23. Todd Stinebrickner & Ralph Stinebrickner, 2012. "Learning about Academic Ability and the College Dropout Decision," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(4), pages 707-748.
    24. Brouwers, Jessie & De Bosscher, Veerle & Sotiriadou, Popi, 2012. "An examination of the importance of performances in youth and junior competition as an indicator of later success in tennis," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 461-475.
    25. Levhari, David & Weiss, Yoram, 1974. "The Effect of Risk on the Investment in Human Capital," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(6), pages 950-963, December.
    26. Philip Grossman & Catherine Eckel, 2015. "Loving the long shot: Risk taking with skewed lotteries," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 195-217, December.
    27. Christian Gollier, 2001. "Wealth Inequality and Asset Pricing," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 68(1), pages 181-203.
    28. Flyer, Fredrick A, 1997. "The Influence of Higher Moments of Earnings Distributions on Career Decisions," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(4), pages 689-713, October.
    29. Hartog, Joop & Diaz-Serrano, Luis, 2014. "Schooling as a Risky Investment: A Survey of Theory and Evidence," Foundations and Trends(R) in Microeconomics, now publishers, vol. 9(3-4), pages 159-331, February.
    30. World Bank, 2012. "World Development Indicators 2012," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6014, December.
    31. Brian Boyer & Todd Mitton & Keith Vorkink, 2010. "Expected Idiosyncratic Skewness," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(1), pages 169-202, January.
    32. Charles T. Clotfelter & Philip J. Cook, 1989. "The Demand for Lottery Products," NBER Working Papers 2928, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    33. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    34. Allan G. King, 1974. "Occupational Choice, Risk Aversion, and Wealth," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 27(4), pages 586-596, July.
    35. Garrett, Thomas A. & Sobel, Russell S., 1999. "Gamblers favor skewness, not risk: Further evidence from United States' lottery games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 85-90, April.
    36. Daniel Barth & Stephen H. Shore & Shane T. Jensen, 2017. "Identifying idiosyncratic career taste and skill with income risk," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 8(2), pages 553-587, July.
    37. William R. Johnson, 1977. "Uncertainty and the Distribution of Earnings," NBER Chapters, in: The Distribution of Economic Well-Being, pages 379-396, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    38. Ralph Stinebrickner & Todd R. Stinebrickner, 2014. "A Major in Science? Initial Beliefs and Final Outcomes for College Major and Dropout," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(1), pages 426-472.
    39. Tom Krebs, 2003. "Human Capital Risk and Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(2), pages 709-744.
    40. David Eil & Justin M. Rao, 2011. "The Good News-Bad News Effect: Asymmetric Processing of Objective Information about Yourself," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 114-138, May.
    41. Joseph Golec & Maurry Tamarkin, 1998. "Bettors Love Skewness, Not Risk, at the Horse Track," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(1), pages 205-225, February.
    42. Ted O'Donoghue & Jason Somerville, 2018. "Modeling Risk Aversion in Economics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(2), pages 91-114, Spring.
    43. Facundo Alvaredo & Anthony B. Atkinson & Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2013. "The Top 1 Percent in International and Historical Perspective," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(3), pages 3-20, Summer.
    44. Patrick Bolton & Tano Santos & Jose A. Scheinkman, 2016. "Cream-Skimming in Financial Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(2), pages 709-736, April.
    45. repec:eee:labchp:v:1:y:1986:i:c:p:641-692 is not listed on IDEAS
    46. Marc Oliver Rieger & Mei Wang & Thorsten Hens, 2015. "Risk Preferences Around the World," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(3), pages 637-648, March.
    47. Kevin M. Stange, 2012. "An Empirical Investigation of the Option Value of College Enrollment," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 49-84, January.
    48. T. Clifton Green & Byoung-Hyoun Hwang, 2012. "Initial Public Offerings as Lotteries: Skewness Preference and First-Day Returns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(2), pages 432-444, February.
    49. MacDonald, Glenn M, 1988. "The Economics of Rising Stars," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(1), pages 155-166, March.
    50. Kane, Thomas J, 1994. "College Entry by Blacks since 1970: The Role of College Costs, Family Background, and the Returns to Education," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(5), pages 878-911, October.
    51. Jerker Denrell, 2003. "Vicarious Learning, Undersampling of Failure, and the Myths of Management," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 14(3), pages 227-243, June.
    52. Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "The Economics of Superstars," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 845-858, December.
    53. Jessie Brouwers & Veerle De Bosscher & Popi Sotiriadou, 2012. "An examination of the importance of performances in youth and junior competition as an indicator of later success in tennis," Sport Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(4), pages 461-475, October.
    54. 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.
    55. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    56. Hartog, Joop & Vijverberg, Wim P.M., 2007. "On compensation for risk aversion and skewness affection in wages," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(6), pages 938-956, December.
    57. Moore, Michael J, 1995. "Unions, Employment Risks, and Market Provision of Employment Risk Differentials," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 57-70, January.
    58. Dan Lovallo & Colin Camerer, 1999. "Overconfidence and Excess Entry: An Experimental Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 306-318, March.
    59. John S. Chen & David C. Croson & Daniel W. Elfenbein & Hart E. Posen, 2018. "The Impact of Learning and Overconfidence on Entrepreneurial Entry and Exit," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(6), pages 989-1009, December.
    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. Markus Dertwinkel-Kalt & Mats Köster, 2020. "Salience and Skewness Preferences [Risk-neutral Firms can Extract Unbounded Profits from Consumers with Prospect Theory Preferences]," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(5), pages 2057-2107.
    2. Markus Dertwinkel-Kalt & Jonas Frey, 2020. "Optimal Stopping in a Dynamic Salience Model," CESifo Working Paper Series 8496, CESifo.
    3. Thieme, Lutz & Falk, Rüdiger, 2021. "Zur Entwicklung von Vergütungssystemen in deutschen Großsportvereinen," Working Papers of the European Institute for Socioeconomics 35, European Institute for Socioeconomics (EIS), Saarbrücken.

    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. Grove, Wayne A. & Jetter, Michael & Papps, Kerry L., 2021. "Career lotto? Labor supply in a superstar market," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 362-376.
    2. Markus Dertwinkel-Kalt & Mats Köster, 2020. "Salience and Skewness Preferences [Risk-neutral Firms can Extract Unbounded Profits from Consumers with Prospect Theory Preferences]," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(5), pages 2057-2107.
    3. Dertwinkel-Kalt, Markus & Köster, Mats, 2017. "Local thinking and skewness preferences," DICE Discussion Papers 248, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    4. Dertwinkel-Kalt, Markus & Kasinger, Johannes & Schneider, Dmitrij, 2022. "Skewness preferences: Evidence from online poker," SAFE Working Paper Series 351, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    5. Markus Dertwinkel-Kalt & Johannes Kasinger & Dmitrij Schneider, 2024. "Skewness Preferences: Evidence from Online Poker," CESifo Working Paper Series 10977, CESifo.
    6. Goto, Shingo & Yamada, Toru, 2023. "What drives biased odds in sports betting markets: Bettors’ irrationality and the role of bookmakers," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 252-270.
    7. Vincenzo Carrieri & Francesco Principe & Michele Raitano, 2018. "What makes you ‘super-rich’? New evidence from an analysis of football players’ wages," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 70(4), pages 950-973.
    8. Jondeau, Eric & Zhang, Qunzi & Zhu, Xiaoneng, 2019. "Average skewness matters," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(1), pages 29-47.
    9. Kai Barron & Christina Gravert, 2022. "Confidence and Career Choices: An Experiment," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 124(1), pages 35-68, January.
    10. Ohk, Seungbin & Ju, Biung-Ghi, 2021. "Capitalizing on prospect theory value: The Asian developed stock markets," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    11. Hollstein, Fabian & Sejdiu, Vulnet, 2023. "Probability distortions, collectivism, and international stock prices," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    12. Carrillo, Juan & Brocas, Isabelle & Giga, Aleksandar & Zapatero, Fernando, 2016. "Skewness Seeking in a Dynamic Portfolio Choice Experiment," CEPR Discussion Papers 11056, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Filiz-Ozbay, Emel & Guryan, Jonathan & Hyndman, Kyle & Kearney, Melissa & Ozbay, Erkut Y., 2015. "Do lottery payments induce savings behavior? Evidence from the lab," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 1-24.
    14. Fossen, Frank M. & Glocker, Daniela, 2017. "Stated and revealed heterogeneous risk preferences in educational choice," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 1-25.
    15. Li An & Huijun Wang & Jian Wang & Jianfeng Yu, 2020. "Lottery-Related Anomalies: The Role of Reference-Dependent Preferences," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(1), pages 473-501, January.
    16. Matteo Benuzzi & Matteo Ploner, 2023. "Skewness-seeking behavior and financial investments," CEEL Working Papers 2301, Cognitive and Experimental Economics Laboratory, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    17. Dertwinkel-Kalt, Markus & Wenzel, Tobias, 2019. "Focusing and framing of risky alternatives," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 289-304.
    18. Lambert, M. & Hübner, G., 2013. "Comoment risk and stock returns," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 191-205.
    19. Martin Chegere & Paolo Falco & Marco Nieddiu & Lorenzo Pandolfi & Mattea Stein, 2022. "It’s a Sure Win! Experimental evidence on overconfidence in betting behavior," CSEF Working Papers 655, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    20. Scott M. Kaplan, 2022. "Putting a price on popularity: Evidence from superstars in the National Basketball Association," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(3), pages 1357-1381, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    winner-take-all markets; superstar markets; labor supply; human capital; gender differences; skewness preferences;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J44 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Professional Labor Markets and Occupations
    • 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:iza:izadps:dp12012. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.