IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp8098.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Are Voluntary Agreements Better? Evidence from Baseball Arbitration

Author

Listed:
  • Budd, John W.

    (University of Minnesota)

  • Sojourner, Aaron

    (Upjohn Institute for Employment Research)

  • Jung, Jaewoo

    (Korea Labor Institute)

Abstract

This paper empirically examines the widespread belief that voluntarily negotiated agreements produce better long-run relationships than third-party imposed settlements, such as arbitrator decisions or court judgments. Two key outcomes are analyzed – subsequent player performance and the durability of club-player relationship. Major League Baseball provides a compelling setting for these analyses because individual performance is well measured, there is the possibility of relationship breakdown, and both voluntary and imposed settlements are routinely used. While the results clearly show that a third-party imposed settlement is not better than a voluntary one, the evidence in support of the widespread belief is mixed.

Suggested Citation

  • Budd, John W. & Sojourner, Aaron & Jung, Jaewoo, 2014. "Are Voluntary Agreements Better? Evidence from Baseball Arbitration," IZA Discussion Papers 8098, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8098
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp8098.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul L. Burgess & Daniel R. Marburger, 1993. "Do Negotiated and Arbitrated Salaries Differ under Final-Offer Arbitration?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 46(3), pages 548-559, April.
    2. Henry S. Farber & Harry C. Katz, 1979. "Interest Arbitration, Outcomes, and the Incentive to Bargain," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 33(1), pages 55-63, October.
    3. John D. Burger & Stephen J.K. Walters, 2005. "Arbitrator Bias and Self-Interest: Lessons from the Baseball Labor Market," Journal of Labor Research, Transaction Publishers, vol. 26(2), pages 267-280, January.
    4. James R. Chelius & James B. Dworkin, 1980. "An Economic Analysis of Final-Offer Arbitration as a Conflict Resolution Device," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 24(2), pages 293-310, June.
    5. Alexandre Mas, 2006. "Pay, Reference Points, and Police Performance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(3), pages 783-821.
    6. John Fizel & Anthony C. Krautmann & Lawrence Hadley, 2002. "Equity and arbitration in major league baseball," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(7), pages 427-435.
    7. 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.
    8. Brian P. McCall, 1990. "Interest Arbitration and the Incentive to Bargain," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 34(1), pages 151-167, March.
    9. David J. Faurot & Stephen McAllister, 1992. "Salary Arbitration and Pre-Arbitration Negotiation in Major League Baseball," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 45(4), pages 697-710, July.
    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. Bradley R. Weinberg, 2020. "Third-Party Intervention and the Preservation of Bargaining Relationships," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 73(2), pages 498-527, March.

    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. Alan Speight & Dennis Thomas, 1997. "Arbitrator Decision‐Making in the Transfer Market: an Empirical Analysis," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 44(2), pages 198-215, May.
    2. Bradley R. Weinberg, 2020. "Third-Party Intervention and the Preservation of Bargaining Relationships," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 73(2), pages 498-527, March.
    3. Michele Campolieti & Chris Riddell, 2019. "Interest Arbitration and the Narcotic Effect: Evidence from Three Decades of Collective Bargaining in Ontario," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 57(3), pages 421-452, September.
    4. Matthew Clayton & David Yermack, 1999. "Major League Baseball Player Contracts: An Investigation of the Empirical Properties of Real Options," New York University, Leonard N. Stern School Finance Department Working Paper Seires 99-051, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business-.
    5. Stephen J. K. Walters & Peter Allmen & Anthony Krautmann, 2017. "Risk Aversion and Wages: Evidence from the Baseball Labor Market," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 45(3), pages 385-397, September.
    6. J. Richard Hill & Nicholas A. Jolly, 2014. "Negotiated Settlement Under Mlb Final-Offer Salary Arbitration System," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 32(2), pages 533-543, April.
    7. Hamermesh, Daniel S. & Pfann, Gerard, 2009. "Markets for Reputation: Evidence on Quality and Quantity in Academe," CEPR Discussion Papers 7603, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Richard P. Chaykowski, 2019. "Time to Tweak or Re-boot? Assessing the Interest Arbitration Process in Canadian Industrial Relations," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 539, April.
    9. Phillip A. Miller, 2000. "A Theoretical and Empirical Comparison of Free Agent and Arbitration‐Eligible Salaries Negotiated in Major League Baseball," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 67(1), pages 87-104, July.
    10. Daniel R. Marburger & Paul L. Burgess, 2004. "Can Prior Offers and Arbitration Outcomes Be Used to Predict the Winners of Subsequent Final‐Offer Arbitration Cases?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 71(1), pages 93-102, July.
    11. 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.
    12. John Fizel & Anthony C. Krautmann & Lawrence Hadley, 2002. "Equity and arbitration in major league baseball," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(7), pages 427-435.
    13. James Lambrinos & Thomas D. Ashman, 2007. "Salary Determination in the National Hockey League Is Arbitration Efficient?," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 8(2), pages 192-201, May.
    14. Lawrence Hadley & John Ruggiero, 2006. "Final-offer arbitration in major league baseball: A nonparametric analysis," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 145(1), pages 201-209, July.
    15. 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.
    16. da Silveira, Jaylson Jair & Lima, Gilberto Tadeu, 2021. "Wage inequality as a source of endogenous macroeconomic fluctuations," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 35-52.
    17. Dhammika Dharmapala & Richard H. McAdams & John Rappaport, 2019. "Collective Bargaining and Police Misconduct: Evidence from Florida," CESifo Working Paper Series 7718, CESifo.
    18. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    19. Dinkelman, Taryn & Ranchhod, Vimal, 2012. "Evidence on the impact of minimum wage laws in an informal sector: Domestic workers in South Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 27-45.
    20. Pierre Brochu & Till Gross & Christopher Worswick, 2020. "Temporary foreign workers and firms: Theory and Canadian evidence," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(3), pages 871-915, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    salary; negotiation; arbitration; dispute resolution; sports; baseball;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J52 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Dispute Resolution: Strikes, Arbitration, and Mediation
    • M12 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Personnel Management; Executives; Executive Compensation
    • M5 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp8098. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    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.