IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jospec/v9y2008i4p407-424.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do Firms Have Short Memories?

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Healy

    (Loyola Marymount University, ahealy@lmu.edu)

Abstract

When deciding what salary to offer an employee, a firm needs to predict that employee's future productivity. One piece of information that a firm can use to predict productivity is the employee's past performance record. Classical theory predicts that firms will effectively use the available information to choose an appropriate salary offer. Evidence from baseball contracts indicates, however, that memory-based biases influence salary offers. Consistent with insights from psychology and behavioral economics, salaries are affected too much by recent performance compared with past performance. All organizations do not suffer equally from short memories. The teams that achieve the most with the money that they spend also use past performance data most effectively.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Healy, 2008. "Do Firms Have Short Memories?," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 9(4), pages 407-424, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jospec:v:9:y:2008:i:4:p:407-424
    DOI: 10.1177/1527002507310440
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1527002507310440
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1527002507310440?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Scully, Gerald W, 1974. "Pay and Performance in Major League Baseball," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(6), pages 915-930, December.
    2. Camerer, Colin F, 1989. "Does the Basketball Market Believe in the 'Hot Hand'?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(5), pages 1257-1261, December.
    3. Gray, Philip K & Gray, Stephen F, 1997. "Testing Market Efficiency: Evidence from the NFL Sports Betting Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(4), pages 1725-1737, September.
    4. Daniel Kahneman, 2003. "Maps of Bounded Rationality: Psychology for Behavioral Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(5), pages 1449-1475, December.
    5. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2001. "Are CEOs Rewarded for Luck? The Ones Without Principals Are," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(3), pages 901-932.
    6. Kahn, Lawrence M, 1993. "Free Agency, Long-Term Contracts and Compensation in Major League Baseball: Estimates from Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 75(1), pages 157-164, February.
    7. Paul M. Sommers & Noel Quinton, 1982. "Pay and Performance in Major League Baseball: The Case of the First Family of Free Agents," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 17(3), pages 426-436.
    8. Sendhil Mullainathan, 2002. "A Memory-Based Model of Bounded Rationality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 735-774.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. Kenneth H. Brown & Lisa K. Jepsen, 2009. "The Impact of Team Revenues on MLB Salaries," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 10(2), pages 192-203, April.
    3. James Alm & William H. Kaempfer & Edward Batte Sennoga, 2012. "Baseball Salaries and Income Taxes," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 13(6), pages 619-634, December.
    4. Vincenzo Carrieri & Andrew M. Jones & Francesco Principe, 2020. "Productivity Shocks and Labour Market Outcomes for Top Earners: Evidence from Italian Serie A," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 82(3), pages 549-576, June.
    5. James Alm & William H. Kaempfer & Edward Batte Sennoga, 2012. "Baseball Salaries and Income Taxes: The "Home Field Advantage" of Income Taxes on Free Agent Salaries," Working Papers 1209, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    6. Henrickson, Kevin E. & Langrill, Ryan, 2013. "Spatial Econometrics In Nonspatial Settings," Review of Applied Economics, Lincoln University, Department of Financial and Business Systems, vol. 9(1-2), January.

    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. John D. Burger & Stephen J. K. Walters, 2008. "The Existence and Persistence of a Winner's Curse: New Evidence from the (Baseball) Field," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(1), pages 232-245, July.
    2. Joel Maxcy, 2004. "Motivating long-term employment contracts: risk management in major league baseball," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(2), pages 109-120.
    3. Pelnar, Gregory, 2007. "Antitrust Analysis of Sports Leagues," MPRA Paper 5382, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Jahn K. Hakes & Chad Turner, 2008. "Long-Term Contracts in Major League Baseball," Working Papers 0831, International Association of Sports Economists;North American Association of Sports Economists.
    5. AC. Krautmann & E. Gustafson & L. Hadley, 2000. "Who pays for minor league training costs?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 18(1), pages 37-47, January.
    6. Kenneth H. Brown & Fred J. Abraham, 2002. "Testing Market Efficiency in the Major League Baseball Over-Under Betting Market," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 3(4), pages 311-319, November.
    7. Hsuan-Yu Lin & Chih-Hai Yang, 2016. "Uncertainty, specific investment, and contract duration: evidence from the MLB player market," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 50(3), pages 1009-1028, May.
    8. Torbern Anderson & Sumner J. La Croix, 1989. "Minority Pitchers in Major League Baseball: Is There Discrimination by Fans?," Working Papers 198913, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics.
    9. Bill M. Woodland & Linda M. Woodland, 2000. "Testing Contrarian Strategies in the National Football League," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 1(2), pages 187-193, May.
    10. Stekler, H.O. & Sendor, David & Verlander, Richard, 2010. "Issues in sports forecasting," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 606-621, July.
      • Herman O. Stekler & David Sendor & Richard Verlander, 2009. "Issues in Sports Forecasting," Working Papers 2009-002, The George Washington University, Department of Economics, H. O. Stekler Research Program on Forecasting.
    11. Jaiho Chung & Joon Ho Hwang, 2010. "An Empirical Examination of the Parimutuel Sports Lottery Market versus the Bookmaker Market," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 76(4), pages 884-905, April.
    12. Jahn Hakes & Chad Turner, 2011. "Pay, productivity and aging in Major League Baseball," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 61-74, February.
    13. Cornaglia, Francesca & Feldman, Naomi E., 2011. "Productivity, Wages, and Marriage: The Case of Major League Baseball," IZA Discussion Papers 5695, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Haupert, Michael & Murray, James, 2011. "Regime Switching and Wages in Major League Baseball under the Reserve Clause," MPRA Paper 29094, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Xavier Gabaix, 2014. "A Sparsity-Based Model of Bounded Rationality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(4), pages 1661-1710.
    16. Boucher, Michel, 1985. "Coûts de transaction et faible nombre relatif des Canadiens français dans la LNH," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 61(3), pages 388-393, septembre.
    17. Federico E. Contiggiani & Fernando Delbianco & Fernando Tohm'e, 2021. "A Graph-based Similarity Function for CBDT: Acquiring and Using New Information," Papers 2104.14268, arXiv.org.
    18. Rabin, Matthew, 2000. "Inference by Believers in the Law of Small Numbers," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt4sw8n41t, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    19. Michael Sinkey & Trevon Logan, 2014. "Does the Hot Hand Drive the Market? Evidence from College Football Betting Markets," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 40(4), pages 583-603, September.
    20. Anthony C. Krautmann & Elizabeth Gustafson & Lawrence Hadley, 2003. "A Note on the Structural Stability of Salary Equations," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 4(1), pages 56-63, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    limited memory; wages; baseball;
    All these keywords.

    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:sae:jospec:v:9:y:2008:i:4:p:407-424. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.