Racial discrimination and long-term contracts in major league baseball

The preponderance of studies on salary determination for major league baseball players suggests that significant pay differences do not exist between races. The possibility exists, however, that salary discrimination may be disguised by a racially biased distribution of long-term contracts. This study suggests that nonwhites are not victimized by long-term contract discrimination, which is consistent with the findings of others on pay discrimination in major league baseball.     

The demand for minor league baseball

Conclusions Overall our model explains 80 percent of the variation in attendance at minor league baseball games for 27 teams over the 1973–77 seasons. This is a remarkable proportion of the variance to be explained by a pooled cross-section-time-series model with 86 observations. Demmert's model explained 58 percent of the variation in per capita attendance in major league baseball over the 1951–69 period and Noll's model explained 69 percent of the variation in absolute attendance at major league baseball games during 1970–71. The F-ratio indicates that our overall model is statistically significant.Our empirical estimation of the demand for minor league baseball attendance supports the general hypotheses one derives from the theory of consumer demand. As expected, the quantity demanded is negatively related to price; the elasticity of demand is less than one. Per capita income has little effect on attendance, but the quality and excitement of play seem to be important to fans. Surprisingly, winning has no effect on attendance. Promotional efforts appear to be effective in generating attendance, but paid advertising seems to be wholly ineffective.The authors received helpful comments on an earlier draft from Al Finegan, Robert Hays, Ira Horowitz, Larry Nelson and an anonymous referee. A less technical report on the subject of this article has been published inBusiness (January–February, 1980) by the same authors.     

Stee-rike four! What's wrong with the business of baseball? edited by Daniel R. Marburger praeger press, 1997, 218 pp.

This is a review of a 14-article volume edited by Daniel R. Marburger. These articles examine such topics as collective bargaining, player salaries, antitrust issues, and the problems of and future prospects for baseball. Major league baseball is an unregulated monopolist whose plant (stadium) is government-subsidized and whose unionized workers (players) share the monopoly profit with management. This sharing has led to considerable labor strife including strikes and lockouts. The major issues discussed in the book include the competitive imbalance as a result of large differences in team revenues, the player salary cap, and revenue sharing. The principal conclusions of the book include the marginal economic impact and benefits of a team on a city and the need to permit low-revenue teams to migrate.     

Managers,specific human capital,and firm productivity in major league baseball

Recent research on the role of managers in firms concentrates on the relationship between compensation and individual performance, which links managerial skills and firm production only indirectly. In this paper, two related analyses test this link directly by examining how the experience of major league baseball managers affects both team and individual player performance. Grouped-data probit estimates indicate that, with team skills held constant, the probability of winning depends on the baseball-specific human capital of the manager. Further estimates, using the first-stage managerial attributes, also indicate that individual player performance improves when traded to "better-trained" managers.     

Racial discrimination in professional baseball

Conclusion Salary discrimination was found to bezero in a transferable monopoly — baseball. Nonwhites and white players received equal pay for equal work. Barriers to entry were foundnot to exist against nonwhites after taking into account that barriers to entryhad existed against nonwhites and had created a long-run equilibrium differential.     

Salary Vs. marginal revenue product under monopsony and competition: The case of professional basketball

Summary and Conclusions A large percentage of sports fans and the general public consider professional athletes to be overpaid. Of course, given their unique skills and abilities, athletes' salaries are high compared to other vocations. The relevant concept of overpayment, however, is in relation to a player's worth to his team. The fan or observer who recognizes that high salaries may in fact reflect players' abilities and contributions to team success, both on the playing surface and at the bank, is probably in the minority. In this paper, it has been argued that the exploitation of athletes depends on the structure of the labor market in professional sports. Despite their high salaries, professional athletes have not always (and some still do not) enjoyed a privilege available to both fans and owners — the privilege of selling their skills to the highest bidder. Previous studies have concluded that restrictions on baseball players' mobility depressed their salaries belowMRP's, and that removal of these restrictions resulted in salaries reflecting a player's value to his team. In this paper, it has been found that the same phenomenon has occurred in basketball, with salaries rising to the level ofMRP when players were given virtually unlimited freedom to negotiate. In addition, no significant evidence of racial discrimination was found in the NBA. The labor market in professional basketball might thus serve as a role model for baseball and football.     

Market Efficiency and Profitable Wagering in the National Hockey League: Can Bettors Score on Longshots?

Sports betting and racetrack markets continue to provide researchers with opportunities to test the efficient market hypothesis. This paper investigates the efficiency of a relatively new sports betting market, the National Hockey League, for 1990-1996. The market is found to be somewhat inefficient and simple wagering strategies are identified that result in profitable returns. Consistent with previous research for football and baseball, bettors in hockey are inclined to overbet favorites relative to their observed chance of winning. Interestingly, the market does not appear to be converging to efficiency.     

Risk Aversion and Wages: Evidence from the Baseball Labor Market

We develop a bargaining model to assess how workers and employers might allocate wages inter-temporally in order to cope with risk. We then apply this model to 106 long-term contracts for major league baseball players’ services. Most of these agreements not only smooth employee compensation over time but suggest greater relative risk aversion for teams than players. Compared to the wages they might pay to retain these players on a succession of one-year contracts, teams often pay a premium on longer-term agreements to protect against market volatility and potential inability to replace a key player on the open market.     

Cheating in Contests

Much of the interest in the study of sports from the perspectiveof an economist lies in the empirical application of contestsas efficient mechanisms for eliciting effort. Contestants respondto contest incentives, and these incentives include the incentiveto cheat. This paper discusses different forms of cheating:sabotage, doping, and match fixing. The paper discusses howthese forms of cheating arise and how they can be treated. Inparticular, we look at specific forms of cheating in soccer,baseball, and cricket. In the appendix we develop a simple modelof match fixing.     

The relationship between supervisor and workers — The case of professional baseball in Japan

This paper analyzes the relationship between the workers' productivity and the supervisor from the point of view of the Matching Hypothesis using data from professional baseball in Japan. The main findings of this paper are the following three points. The first point is that the Matching Hypothesis is rejected in the case of pitchers and hitters. The second one is that the depreciation rate of the effect is about 10–15% per year and differs from zero significantly. Hence, the effect continues for a long time after the matching is broken. Lastly, we cannot find a learning curve for the managers' ability.     

Monopsony and competition: The impact of rival leagues on player salaries during the early days of baseball

During the early days of professional baseball, the dominant major leagues imposed a “reserve clause” designed to limit player wages by restricting competition for labor. Entry into the market by rival leagues challenged the incumbent monopsony cartel's ability to restrict compensation. Using a sample of player salaries from the first 40 years of the reserve clause (1880–1919), this study examines the impact of inter-league competition on player wages. This study finds a positive salary effect associated with rival league entry that is consistent with monopsony wage suppression, but the effect is stronger during the 20th century than the 19th century. Changes in levels of market saturation and minor-league competition may explain differences in the effects between the two eras.     

Can Prior Offers and Arbitration Outcomes Be Used to Predict the Winners of Subsequent Final-Offer Arbitration Cases?

The purpose of interest arbitration is to encourage bargainers to negotiate their own mutually agreeable settlement. In final-offer arbitration (FOA), the bargainers exchange final offers. If a settlement is not reached, an independent arbitrator selects one of the final offers as the award. At the beginning of each arbitration period, the only information available to bargainers relating to arbitrator preferences is past outcomes. Given its goal of driving negotiated settlements, an effective FOA process requires bargainers to infer useful information about arbitrator preferences from past outcomes. Using data from major league baseball, this article provides evidence that past FOA decisions are positively correlated with the outcomes of future FOA cases.     

Team promotion in early major league baseball and the origin of the closed sports league

I argue that a quasi team-promotion system similar to European professional sports leagues once existed in the US, contrary to common perceptions. The first American pro team sport was baseball. From the creation of the first major league in 1876 to the early 1890s, entry was common, occurring primarily by the “promotion” of clubs in operation the previous season. The informal system ended abruptly after an 1892 merger that formed the prototype closed monopoly sports league. Empirical analysis indicates that the cessation of entry reduced competitive balance, and that in their initial year promoted teams outperformed new start-ups. While historians have recognized the elimination of between-league competition as an underlying motive for the monopoly merger, the simultaneous elimination of club entry and competition for league membership has gone virtually unnoticed.     

The Economic Consequences of Professional Sports Strikes and Lockouts

The National Basketball Association (NBA) lockout of 1998-1999 resulted in the cancellation of a significant number of games. According to the claims made by proponents of sports-driven economic growth, cities with NBA franchises should experience significant negative economic losses from this work stoppage because of the lost spending in and around basketball arenas during this event. Although it will be several years before adequate data exist for a careful ex post evaluation of the effects of the lockout, an examination of the impact of past work stoppages in professional football and basketball can shed some light on the potential impact of the NBA lockout as well as the viability of professional sports as engines of economic growth in cities. The parameter estimates from a reduced-form empirical model of the determination of real per capita income in 37 Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSAs) over the period 1969-1996 suggest that prior work stoppages in professional football and baseball had no impact on the economies of cities with franchises. Further, the departure of professional basketball from cities had no impact on their economies in the following years. These results refute the idea that attracting professional sports franchises represents a viable economic development strategy.     

自由现金流量、并购溢价与我国上市公司并购绩效的实证研究

国内外的研究结果表明高自由现金流量低成长性公司在并购后绩效会出现明显的下滑,并把绩效下滑归因于代理成本。文章力图在自由现金流量与并购绩效之间搭建一座桥梁,深入分析导致并购绩效下滑的直接客观原因。通过利用我国上市公司2001-2003年436次并购事件进行实证分析的结果表明,支付过高的并购溢价是导致高自由现金流量低成长性上市公司并购绩效低下的直接客观原因。     

组织研究中的元分析方法：改善其效度的视角

元分析是以综合已有的研究成果为目的,对来自于单独研究中的大量结果进行统计学分析的方法。该研究主要阐述了组织研究中改善元分析方法效度的三个主题：对重复研究成果的鉴别与处理、对系统化偏倚的处理、元分析中模型的选择。目前国内研究中,主要侧重在该方法的应用上,而理论上的进展则较有限。此外,介绍了改进元分析效度的一些措施。     

Why geography matters to the economic history of India

That geography shapes long-run economic change is almost an axiom in economic history, but there is neither adequate understanding nor much agreement about how this influence works. This article is an attempt to contextualise Indian economic history against what we now know of this influence. It is also an attempt to define the geographical condition of the South Asia region in a manner compatible with the purpose of economic history, which is to explain the deep roots of economic growth and inequality.     

Competition and regulation in power engineering management: Theoretical approaches

In recent decades, a number of countries in Europe and the Americas carried out reforms in electric power engineering aimed at increasing efficiency through competition. However, these reforms have brought not only positive but also negative results. At present, there is no commonly recognized concept of management improvement in this industry, which is traditionally regarded as a natural monopoly. An attempt is made in this article to consider problems of power engineering reform (mainly relative to the Russian conditions) using general theoretical approaches to the issue of monopolism.     

Can Consumer Confidence Forecast Household Spending? Evidence from the European Commission Business and Consumer Surveys

This paper represents a first formal attempt to examine the ability of consumer confidence to forecast household spending within a multicountry framework. To this end, we use two confidence indices, namely the Consumer Confidence Indicator and the Economic Sentiment Indicator, both of which are derived from the European Commission Business and Consumer Survey. As in previous single-country investigations, we find that there is much variability in the in-sample incremental forecasting performance of the confidence indices for the countries canvassed. Further, the results of our out-of-sample tests indicate that the confidence indices considered provide limited information about the future path of household spending.     

STATIC MULTIPLIERS AND SOCIAL ACCOUNTING SYSTEMS

THIS article does not attempt to arrive at new results. Itsaim is rather to offer a more systematic framework than hashitherto been provided for the analysis of a large variety ofalready well explored situations. In doing so, however, it bringsout assumptions which are not always clearly stated and whosevariation or replacement by alternatives may open the way toa more general and pragmatic approach. It will be best to proceedfrom the particular to the general and start with the analysisof pure capital transactions, such as are oharacteristio ofthe financial sector and its relations with the government andthe public.