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Competitive Balance in the National Hockey League after Unrestricted Free Agency and the Salary Cap

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  • Lee, Travis

Abstract

In the large literature on issues related to competitive balance, studies tend to find no significant effect of structural changes. However in the National Hockey League, the introduction of unrestricted free agency in 1995 and a hard salary cap in 2005 might reasonably be expected to affect competitiveness. The present note measures between-season competitive balance as the correlation between the current and prior years’ winning percentages. The method is to regress winning percentage on lagged winning percentage and a set of controls. The finding is that competitive balance increased after unrestricted free agency and the salary cap were implemented.

Suggested Citation

  • Lee, Travis, 2020. "Competitive Balance in the National Hockey League after Unrestricted Free Agency and the Salary Cap," MPRA Paper 108400, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:108400
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    National Hockey League; competitive balance; collective bargaining; unrestricted free agency; salary cap;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Z00 - Other Special Topics - - General - - - General

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