IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jrisku/v67y2023i2d10.1007_s11166-023-09415-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

“Injury risk, concussions, race, and pay in the NFL”

Author

Listed:
  • Quinn A. W. Keefer

    (California State University)

  • Thomas J. Kniesner

    (Claremont Graduate University
    Syracuse University
    IZA, Institute of Labor Economics)

Abstract

We make two main contributions to the literature on work-related injury risk and economic outcomes in the context of American professional football. One is to examine an increasingly important specific injury, concussions, and compare its subsequent economic effects to those of other types of football injuries. Our other contribution is to study the role of race in understanding injury risk and severity and their resulting economic consequences, which has been overlooked in previous sports injury research. Using a specific position, tight ends, which allows conditioning on fine-grained relevant measures of player demographics, playing time, and performance, we find that whether a player continues to play NFL football from year to year is affected by type of injury and the player’s race. We calculate that the average ex post loss in annual compensation from a concussion is about 7%. Moreover, the effect of games missed due to concussion on continued employment is triple that of other injuries. Being white positively affects length of playing career independent of the measured productivity of the players involved. The racial gap in career length is approximately equal to the effect of an additional game missed from concussion. With respect to heterogeneity in the effects of injuries, both concussions and other injury types affect ex post economic outcomes equally for white and nonwhite players. Both injuries and race affect compensation solely through their effects on career length.

Suggested Citation

  • Quinn A. W. Keefer & Thomas J. Kniesner, 2023. "“Injury risk, concussions, race, and pay in the NFL”," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 67(2), pages 107-136, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jrisku:v:67:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1007_s11166-023-09415-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s11166-023-09415-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11166-023-09415-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11166-023-09415-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lawrence M. Kahn, 2006. "Race, Performance, Pay, and Retention Among National Basketball Association Head Coaches," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 7(2), pages 119-149, May.
    2. Michael Conlin & Patrick M. Emerson, 2006. "Discrimination in Hiring Versus Retention and Promotion: An Empirical Analysis of Within-Firm Treatment of Players in the NFL," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 115-136, April.
    3. Steven Salaga & Brian M. Mills & Scott Tainsky, 2020. "Employer-Assigned Workload and Human Capital Deterioration: Evidence From the National Football League," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(6), pages 628-659, August.
    4. Paolo Candio & Andrew J. Hill & Stavros Poupakis & Anni-Maria Pulkki-Brännström & Chris Bojke & Manuel Gomes, 2021. "Copula Models for Addressing Sample Selection in the Evaluation of Public Health Programmes: An Application to the Leeds Let’s Get Active Study," Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 305-312, May.
    5. Johnny Ducking & Peter A. Groothuis & James Richard Hill, 2017. "Compensation Discrimination: an Analysis of Linebackers, Defensive Linemen, and Defensive Backs in the National Football League," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 44(3), pages 251-260, December.
    6. Johnny Ducking & Peter Groothuis & James Hill, 2015. "Exit Discrimination in the NFL: A Duration Analysis of Career Length," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 42(3), pages 285-299, September.
    7. Ian Gregory‐Smith, 2021. "Wages And Labor Productivity: Evidence From Injuries In The National Football League," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(2), pages 829-847, April.
    8. Cade Massey & Richard H. Thaler, 2013. "The Loser's Curse: Decision Making and Market Efficiency in the National Football League Draft," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(7), pages 1479-1495, July.
    9. Borghesi, Richard, 2008. "Allocation of scarce resources: Insight from the NFL salary cap," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 60(6), pages 536-550.
    10. David J. Berri & Rob Simmons, 2009. "Race and the Evaluation of Signal Callers in the National Football League," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 10(1), pages 23-43, February.
    11. Nancy J. Burnett & Lee J. Van Scyoc, 2013. "Compensation Discrimination for Wide Receivers: Applying Quantile Regression to the National Football League," Journal of Reviews on Global Economics, Lifescience Global, vol. 2, pages 433-441.
    12. Quinn Keefer & Thomas J. Kniesner, 2022. "Performance and Pay in Professional Football," Foundations and Trends(R) in Microeconomics, now publishers, vol. 12(4), pages 269-343, June.
    13. Lee, Lung-Fei, 1983. "Generalized Econometric Models with Selectivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(2), pages 507-512, March.
    14. W. Viscusi & Elissa Gentry, 2015. "The value of a statistical life for transportation regulations: A test of the benefits transfer methodology," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 51(1), pages 53-77, August.
    15. Lung-Fei Lee, 1982. "Some Approaches to the Correction of Selectivity Bias," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(3), pages 355-372.
    16. Heckman, James J, 1974. "Shadow Prices, Market Wages, and Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 42(4), pages 679-694, July.
    17. Christopher Jepsen & Lisa Jepsen & Trevor Draisey & Josh Mahoney, 2021. "Race and National Football League Player Salaries After Controlling for Fantasy Statistics and Arrests," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 22(4), pages 359-386, May.
    18. Johnny Ducking & Peter Groothuis & James Hill, 2015. "Exit Discrimination in the NFL: A Duration Analysis of Career Length," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 42(3), pages 285-299, September.
    19. Margarita Genius & Elisabetta Strazzera, 2008. "Applying the copula approach to sample selection modelling," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(11), pages 1443-1455.
    20. Johnny Ducking & Peter A. Groothuis & James Richard Hill, 2014. "Compensation discrimination in the NFL: an analysis of career earnings," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(10), pages 679-682, July.
    21. 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.
    22. Marra, Giampiero & Radice, Rosalba, 2017. "Bivariate copula additive models for location, scale and shape," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 99-113.
    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. Salaga, Steven & Juravich, Matthew, 2020. "National Football League head coach race, performance, retention, and dismissal," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 978-991.
    2. Christopher Jepsen & Lisa Jepsen & Trevor Draisey & Josh Mahoney, 2021. "Race and National Football League Player Salaries After Controlling for Fantasy Statistics and Arrests," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 22(4), pages 359-386, May.
    3. Johnny Ducking & Peter A. Groothuis, 2023. "Positional Segregation and Career Length in Major League Baseball in the 1990s," Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy, Springer, vol. 6(3), pages 149-159, September.
    4. Johnny Ducking & Peter A. Groothuis & James Richard Hill, 2017. "Compensation Discrimination: an Analysis of Linebackers, Defensive Linemen, and Defensive Backs in the National Football League," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 44(3), pages 251-260, December.
    5. Hasebe, Takuya & Vijverberg, Wim P., 2012. "A Flexible Sample Selection Model: A GTL-Copula Approach," IZA Discussion Papers 7003, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Bhat, Chandra R. & Eluru, Naveen, 2009. "A copula-based approach to accommodate residential self-selection effects in travel behavior modeling," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 43(7), pages 749-765, August.
    7. Ian Gregory-Smith & Alex Bryson & Rafael Gomez, 2023. "Discrimination in a Rank Order Contest: Evidence from the NFL Draft," Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy, Springer, vol. 6(3), pages 215-231, September.
    8. Mona Said, 2003. "The Distribution of Gender and Public Sector Pay Premia: Evidence from the Egyptian Organised Sector," Working Papers 132, Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK.
    9. Daniel LaFave & Randy Nelson & Michael Doherty, 2018. "Race and Retention in a Competitive Labor Market," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(3), pages 417-451, April.
    10. Quinn A. W. Keefer, 2019. "Do sunk costs affect expert decision making? Evidence from the within-game usage of NFL running backs," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(5), pages 1769-1796, May.
    11. Ham, John C. & Kagel, John H. & Lehrer, Steven F., 2005. "Randomization, endogeneity and laboratory experiments: the role of cash balances in private value auctions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 125(1-2), pages 175-205.
    12. Johnny Ducking & Peter Groothuis & James Hill, 2015. "Exit Discrimination in the NFL: A Duration Analysis of Career Length," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 42(3), pages 285-299, September.
    13. Kahn, Lawrence M., 2009. "The Economics of Discrimination: Evidence from Basketball," IZA Discussion Papers 3987, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Victor Chernozhukov & Ivan Fernandez-Val & Siyi Luo, 2023. "Distribution regression with sample selection and UK wage decomposition," CeMMAP working papers 09/23, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    15. Victor Chernozhukov & Ivan Fernandez-Val & Siyi Luo, 2018. "Distribution regression with sample selection, with an application to wage decompositions in the UK," CeMMAP working papers CWP68/18, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    16. James Heckman & Justin L. Tobias & Edward Vytlacil, 2001. "Four Parameters of Interest in the Evaluation of Social Programs," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 68(2), pages 210-223, October.
    17. Tansel, Avsit, 2005. "Public-Private Employment Choice, Wage Differentials, and Gender in Turkey," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(2), pages 453-477, January.
    18. Steven Salaga & Brian M. Mills & Scott Tainsky, 2020. "Employer-Assigned Workload and Human Capital Deterioration: Evidence From the National Football League," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(6), pages 628-659, August.
    19. Margarita Genius & Elisabetta Strazzera, 2008. "Applying the copula approach to sample selection modelling," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(11), pages 1443-1455.
    20. Wiemann, Paul F.V. & Klein, Nadja & Kneib, Thomas, 2022. "Correcting for sample selection bias in Bayesian distributional regression models," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Work-related injuries; Concussions; Race; Pay; NFL; Tight ends; Panel data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J81 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Standards - - - Working Conditions
    • Z21 - Other Special Topics - - Sports Economics - - - Industry Studies
    • Z22 - Other Special Topics - - Sports Economics - - - Labor Issues
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models

    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:kap:jrisku:v:67:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1007_s11166-023-09415-1. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.