IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this paper

Cost Incentives in European Football

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Feddersen, Arne

    ()

    (University of Southern Denmark)

  • Humphreys, Brad

    ()

    (University of Alberta, Department of Economics)

  • Soebbing, Brian

    ()

    (Louisiana State University)

Abstract

We examine the effects of financial incentives on effort supplied by football clubs in European domestic leagues. Tournament theory predicts that the amount of effort supplied varies with returns to effort. We analyze variation in 31,746 domestic league match outcomes in ten European leagues over eleven seasons, exploiting the actual standings on the league table to generate variables reflecting incentives to provide effort in each match. Results from ordered logit regressions indicate that the effort implied by observed match outcomes support the predictions of tournament theory in this setting; clubs supply more or less effort in response to changes in incentives.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: https://sites.ualberta.ca/~econwps/2012/wp2012-25.pdf13
File Function: Full text
Download Restriction: no

Paper provided by University of Alberta, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers with number 2012-13.

as
in new window

Length: 45 pages
Date of creation: 01 Jul 2012
Handle: RePEc:ris:albaec:2012_013
Contact details of provider: Postal:
8-14 HM Tory, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2H4

Phone: (780) 492-3406
Fax: (780) 492-3300
Web page: http://www.ualberta.ca/economics

More information through EDIRC

Keywords: effort supply; football; UEFA Champions League;

Find related papers by JEL classification:

  • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General
  • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods
  • L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as
in new window


  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. Bernd Frick, 2003. "Contest Theory and Sport," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(4), pages 512-529, Winter.
  3. Helmut Dietl & Markus Lang & Stephan Werner, 2008. "Corruption in Professional Sumo: An Update on the Study of Duggan and Levitt," Working Papers 0085, University of Zurich, Institute for Strategy and Business Economics (ISU), revised Jun 2009.
  4. Joseph Price & Brian P. Soebbing & David Berri & Brad R. Humphreys, 2010. "Tournament Incentives, League Policy, and NBA Team Performance Revisited," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 11(2), pages 117-135, April.
  5. Sonia Falconieri & Frédéric Palomino & József Sákovics, 2004. "Collective Versus Individual Sale of Television Rights in League Sports," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(5), pages 833-862, 09.
  6. Beck A. Taylor & Justin G. Trogdon, 2002. "Losing to Win: Tournament Incentives in the National Basketball Association," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(1), pages 23-41, January.
  7. Tim Pawlowski & Christoph Breuer & Arnd Hovemann, 2010. "Top Clubs’ Performance and the Competitive Situation in European Domestic Football Competitions," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 11(2), pages 186-202, April.
  8. David J. Berri & Anthony C. Krautmann, 2006. "Shirking on the Court: Testing for the Incentive Effects of Guaranteed Pay," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 44(3), pages 536-546, July.
  9. repec:sae:ilrrev:v:43:y:1990:i:3:p:74-88 is not listed on IDEAS
  10. Knoeber, Charles R & Thurman, Walter N, 1994. "Testing the Theory of Tournaments: An Empirical Analysis of Broiler Production," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(2), pages 155-179, April.
  11. 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.
  12. Daniel R. Marburger, 2003. "Does the Assignment of Property Rights Encourage or Discourage Shirking?," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 4(1), pages 19-34, February.
  13. Stefan Szymanski, 2003. "The Economic Design of Sporting Contests," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(4), pages 1137-1187, December.
  14. Michael T. Maloney & Robert E. McCormick, 2000. "The Response of Workers to Wages in Tournaments," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 1(2), pages 99-123, May.
  15. 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.
  16. Helmut M. Dietl & Markus Lang & Stephan Werner, 2010. "Corruption in Professional Sumo: An Update on the Study of Duggan and Levitt," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 11(4), pages 383-396, August.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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

as
in new window


Cited by:

  1. Budzinski, Oliver & Pawlowski, Tim, 2014. "The behavioural economics of competitive balance: Implications for league policy and championship management," Ilmenau Economics Discussion Papers 89, Ilmenau University of Technology, Institute of Economics.
  2. Colin Green & Fernando Lozano & Rob Simmons, 2015. "Rank-Order Tournaments, Probability of Winning and Investing in Talent: Evidence from Champions' League Qualifying Rules," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 232(1), pages 30-40, May.
  3. Budzinski, Oliver & Müller-Kock, Anika, 2016. "Market power and media revenue allocation in professonal sports: The case of formula one," Ilmenau Economics Discussion Papers 102, Ilmenau University of Technology, Institute of Economics.
  4. Lahvicka, Jiri, 2012. "Using Monte Carlo simulation to calculate match importance: the case of English Premier League," MPRA Paper 40998, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  5. Pawlowski, Tim & Budzinski, Oliver, 2014. "Competitive balance and attention level effects: Theoretical considerations and preliminary evidence," Ilmenau Economics Discussion Papers 84, Ilmenau University of Technology, Institute of Economics.
  6. Budzinski, Oliver, 2017. "Sind Wettbewerbe im Profisport Rattenrennen?," Ilmenau Economics Discussion Papers 104, Ilmenau University of Technology, Institute of Economics.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ris:albaec:2012_013. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Joseph Marchand)

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.