Having Good Friends is a Good Thing: The Effects of Peers and Superstars on Performance in Swimming Competitions

By exploiting an unusually rich panel data set from the National Database of Student Athletes, this article addresses the issue of peer effects and superstar effects on performance in multi-stage swimming competitions. Four key findings are presented. First, the evidence from relay teams supports a positive inter-team peer effect from competitors in a male relay race, but a negative inter-team peer effect from competitors in a female relay race. Second, the evidence from both female and male relay teams shows that there exists a positive intra-team peer effect from teammates. In our estimations for female relay races, a foolish teammate does more harm (+3.11 seconds) than a brilliant opponent does good (+0.55 seconds) in the estimation of the Heckman Selection Model based on panel data. Third, a male team with average-quality swimmers performs better than a team with dispersed-quality swimmers. Fourth, for the super-team effects in these tournaments, on average, the female relay teams? (/male relay teams?) times are approximately 2.85(/2.09) seconds faster/slower when the previous year?s winning team participates.