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The Economics of Long-term Contracts in the Footballers' Labour Market

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Listed:
  • Babatunde Buraimo
  • Bernd Frick
  • Michael Hickfang
  • Rob Simmons

Abstract

type="main" xml:id="sjpe12064-abs-0001"> Peter Sloane's seminal article in this journal on the objectives of football clubs argued that utility maximising clubs would seek out player talent more aggressively than profit maximising clubs and that this accumulation of player talent by larger teams might need to be checked by redistribution of revenues. We suggest in this article that, in a context of rising revenues and high rewards, the pressures to acquire more and better talent so as to out-perform other teams on the football pitch leads to a requirement for teams to practise effective contract management. Using a large dataset from the German Bundesliga, we find that players with longer term contracts perform better, ceteris paribus. Hence, selection effects in the award of long-term contracts dominate moral hazard (shirking) effects in the Bundesliga.

Suggested Citation

  • Babatunde Buraimo & Bernd Frick & Michael Hickfang & Rob Simmons, 2015. "The Economics of Long-term Contracts in the Footballers' Labour Market," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 62(1), pages 8-24, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:scotjp:v:62:y:2015:i:1:p:8-24
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/sjpe.2015.62.issue-1
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    3. Burdekin, Richard C.K. & Franklin, Michael, 2015. "Transfer spending in the English premier league: the haves and the have nots," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 232, pages 4-17, May.
    4. Majewski Sebastian, 2016. "Identification of Factors Determining Market Value of the Most Valuable Football Players," Journal of Management and Business Administration. Central Europe, Sciendo, vol. 24(3), pages 91-104, September.
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    7. Peter J. Sloane, 2015. "The Economics of Professional Football Revisited," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 62(1), pages 1-7, February.
    8. Tommy Quansah & Bernd Frick & Markus Lang & Kieran Maguire, 2021. "The Importance of Club Revenues for Player Salaries and Transfer Expenses—How Does the Coronavirus Outbreak (COVID-19) Impact the English Premier League?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-22, May.
    9. Sandra Schneemann & Christian Deutscher, 2017. "Intermediate Information, Loss Aversion, And Effort: Empirical Evidence," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(4), pages 1759-1770, October.
    10. Fumarco, Luca & Longley, Neil & Palermo, Alberto & Rossi, Giambattista, 2024. "Strategic Behaviours in a Labour Market with Mobility-Restricting Contractual Provisions: Evidence from the National Hockey League," IZA Discussion Papers 16836, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Daniel Weimar & Katrin Scharfenkamp, 2019. "Effort reduction of employer‐to‐employer changers: Empirical evidence from football," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(3), pages 277-291, April.
    12. Sittl, Roman & Warnke, Arne Jonas, 2016. "Competitive balance and assortative matching in the German Bundesliga," ZEW Discussion Papers 16-058, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    13. Besters, Lucas, 2018. "Economics of professional football," Other publications TiSEM d9e6b9b7-a17b-4665-9cca-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    14. 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.
    15. 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.
    16. Carrieri, Vincenzo & Principe, Francesco & Raitano, Michele, 2017. "What makes you "super-rich"? New evidence from an analysis of football players' earnings," Ruhr Economic Papers 681, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    17. Raul Caruso & Marco Di Domizio & Domenico Rossignoli, 2017. "Aggregate wages of players and performance in Italian Serie A," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 34(3), pages 515-531, December.
    18. Butler, David & Butler, Robert & Farnell, Alex & Simmons, Robert, 2024. "COVID-19 infections and short-run worker performance: Evidence from European football," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 315(2), pages 750-763.
    19. Nicolas Bonneton & Christopher Sandmann, 2023. "Non-Stationary Search and Assortative Matching," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2023_465, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    20. Majewski Sebastian & Majewska Agnieszka, 2017. "Using Monte Carlo Methods for the Valuation of Intangible Assets in Sports Economics," Folia Oeconomica Stetinensia, Sciendo, vol. 17(2), pages 71-82, December.
    21. Furmaco, L. & Longley, N. & Palermo, A. & Rossi, G., 2021. "Employees’ Performance Variation over Fixed-Term Contracts - Evidence from the National Hockey League," Working Papers 2107, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    22. John L. Solow & Anthony C. Krautmann, 2020. "Do You Get What You Pay for? Salary and Ex Ante Player Value in Major League Baseball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(7), pages 705-722, October.
    23. Müller, Michael, 2016. "The strongest link in a weak team? Performance of players with and without outside options in relegated football clubs," Discussion Papers of the Institute for Organisational Economics 07/2016, University of Münster, Institute for Organisational Economics.

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