IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lan/wpaper/611523.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Mixing the princes and the paupers: Pay and performance in the National Basketball Association

Author

Listed:
  • R Simmons
  • D J Berri

Abstract

We investigate how team and individual performances of players in the National Basketball Association respond to variations in intra-team pay inequality. By breaking down team dispersion into conditional and expected components, we find that expected pay dispersion has a positive effect on team and individual performance. We find that team and individual performances are essentially orthogonal to conditional pay inequality, counter to the hypotheses of fairness and cohesion proposed in the literature both for sports and general occupations. A change in collective bargaining regime in 1996 had little impact on either team or player productivity.

Suggested Citation

  • R Simmons & D J Berri, 2010. "Mixing the princes and the paupers: Pay and performance in the National Basketball Association," Working Papers 611523, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    • Handle: RePEc:lan:wpaper:611523
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/media/lancaster-university/content-assets/documents/lums/economics/working-papers/PayPerformance.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lazear, Edward P & Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 841-864, October.
    2. Christian Grund & Niels Westergaard-Nielsen, 2008. "The Dispersion of Employees' Wage Increases and Firm Performance," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 61(4), pages 485-501, July.
    3. Joseph Price & Justin Wolfers, 2010. "Racial Discrimination Among NBA Referees," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(4), pages 1859-1887.
    4. Egon Franck & Stephan Nüesch, 2008. "The Effect of Talent Disparity on Team Performance in Soccer," Working Papers 0087, University of Zurich, Institute for Strategy and Business Economics (ISU), revised 2009.
    5. Alexandre Mas & Enrico Moretti, 2009. "Peers at Work," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 112-145, March.
    6. Thierry Lallemand & Robert Plasman & François Rycx, 2004. "Intra‐Firm Wage Dispersion and Firm Performance: Evidence from Linked Employer‐Employee Data," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(4), pages 533-558, November.
    7. Idson, Todd L & Kahane, Leo H, 2000. "Team Effects on Compensation: An Application to Salary Determination in the National Hockey League," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 38(2), pages 345-357, April.
    8. Levine, David I., 1991. "Cohesiveness, productivity, and wage dispersion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 237-255, March.
    9. Charles F. Manski, 1993. "Identification of Endogenous Social Effects: The Reflection Problem," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(3), pages 531-542.
    10. Eric D. Gould & Eyal Winter, 2009. "Interactions between Workers and the Technology of Production: Evidence from Professional Baseball," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(1), pages 188-200, February.
    11. Fredrik Heyman, 2005. "Pay inequality and firm performance: evidence from matched employer-employee data," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(11), pages 1313-1327.
    12. Paul Sommers, 1998. "Work incentives and salary distributions in the national hockey league," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 26(1), pages 119-119, March.
    13. Rosen, Sherwin, 1986. "Prizes and Incentives in Elimination Tournaments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 701-715, September.
    14. David Berri & R. Jewell, 2004. "Wage inequality and firm performance: Professional basketball's natural experiment," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 32(2), pages 130-139, June.
    15. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    16. Franck, Egon & Nüesch, Stephan, 2010. "The effect of talent disparity on team productivity in soccer," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 218-229, April.
    17. Berri David J. & Schmidt Martin B. & Brook Stacey L., 2006. "Review of Wages of Wins: A Reply," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 2(4), pages 1-12, October.
    18. DepkenII, Craig A., 2000. "Wage disparity and team productivity: evidence from major league baseball," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 87-92, April.
    19. Hajime Katayama & Hudan Nuch, 2011. "A game-level analysis of salary dispersion and team performance in the national basketball association," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(10), pages 1193-1207.
    20. Ehrenberg, Ronald G & Bognanno, Michael L, 1990. "Do Tournaments Have Incentive Effects?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(6), pages 1307-1324, December.
    21. David J. Berri, 1999. "Who is 'most valuable'? Measuring the player's production of wins in the National Basketball Association," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(8), pages 411-427.
    22. J. R. Hicks, 1963. "The Theory of Wages," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-349-00189-7, May.
    23. Lazear, Edward P, 1989. "Pay Equality and Industrial Politics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(3), pages 561-580, June.
    24. Lawrence Debrock & Wallace Hendricks & Roger Koenker, 2004. "Pay and Performance," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 5(3), pages 243-261, August.
    25. J. Richard Hill & Peter A. Groothuis, 2001. "The New NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement, the Median Voter Model, and a Robin Hood Rent Redistribution," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 2(2), pages 131-144, May.
    26. repec:bla:kyklos:v:52:y:1999:i:4:p:555-72 is not listed on IDEAS
    27. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. repec:lan:wpaper:3944 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. repec:lan:wpaper:3551 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. repec:lan:wpaper:3659 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. 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 - Working Papers del Dipartimento di Politica Economica dipe0015, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    5. Cheolbeom Park, 2023. "Optimal salary inequality for team performance: evidence from National Football League data," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(24), pages 2773-2787, May.
    6. Marco Di Domizio & Carlo Bellavite Pellegrini & Raul Caruso, 2022. "Payroll dispersion and performance in soccer: A seasonal perspective analysis for Italian Serie A (2007–2021)," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(3), pages 513-525, July.
    7. Caruso, Raul & Carlo, Bellavite Pellegrini & Marco, Di Domizio, 2016. "Does diversity in the payroll affect soccer teams’ performance? Evidence from the Italian Serie A," MPRA Paper 75644, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Hajime Katayama & Hudan Nuch, 2011. "A game-level analysis of salary dispersion and team performance in the national basketball association," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(10), pages 1193-1207.
    9. Tao, Yu-Li & Chuang, Hwei-Lin & Lin, Eric S., 2016. "Compensation and performance in Major League Baseball: Evidence from salary dispersion and team performance," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 151-159.
    10. Egon Franck & Stephan Nüesch, 2007. "Wage Dispersion and Team Performance - An Empirical Panel Analysis," Working Papers 0017, University of Zurich, Center for Research in Sports Administration (CRSA).
    11. Anna Bykova & Dennis Coates, 2022. "Professional team sporting success: do economic and personal freedom provide competitive advantages?," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 323-358, December.
    12. Nils Braakmann, 2008. "Intra-firm wage inequality and firm performance – First evidence from German linked employer-employee-data," Working Paper Series in Economics 77, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    13. Anna Bykova & Dennis Coates, 2020. "Does Experience Matter? Salary Dispersion, Coaching, And Team Performance," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 38(1), pages 188-205, January.
    14. Christian Grund & Niels Westergaard-Nielsen, 2008. "The Dispersion of Employees' Wage Increases and Firm Performance," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 61(4), pages 485-501, July.
    15. Philippe Cyrenne, 2018. "Salary Inequality, Team Success, League Policies, And The Superstar Effect," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 36(1), pages 200-214, January.
    16. Thadeu Gasparetto & Angel Barajas, 2022. "Wage Dispersion and Team Performance: The Moderation Role of Club Size," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 23(5), pages 548-566, June.
    17. Takuma Kamada & Hajime Katayama, 2014. "Team performance and within-team salary disparity: an analysis of nippon professional baseball," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 34(1), pages 144-151.
    18. Eiji Yamamura, 2015. "Wage Disparity and Team Performance in the Process of Industry Development," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 16(2), pages 214-223, February.
    19. Kampelmann, Stephan & Rycx, François, 2012. "The impact of educational mismatch on firm productivity: Evidence from linked panel data," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 918-931.
    20. repec:ver:wpaper:12/2012 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Julia Müller & Thorsten Upmann & Joachim Prinz, 2013. "Individual Team Productivity - A Conceptual Approach," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 13-183/I, Tinbergen Institute.
    22. Benoît Mahy & François Rycx & Mélanie Volral, 2011. "Does Wage Dispersion Make All Firms Productive?," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 58(4), pages 455-489, September.
    23. Eric Mao, 2023. "The Incentive Effects of Tournaments and Peer Effects in Team Production: Evidence from Esports," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 24(2), pages 174-192, February.
    24. Alessandro Bucciol & Marco Piovesan, 2012. "Pay Dispersion and Work Performance," Harvard Business School Working Papers 12-075, Harvard Business School.

    More about this item

    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:lan:wpaper:611523. 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: Giorgio Motta (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/delanuk.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.