Steroids and Home Runs
23 Pages
Posted: 21 Mar 2011
Date Written: March 17, 2011
Abstract
There has been no change in Major League Baseball home run hitting for 45 yr, in spite of the new records. Players hit with no more power now than before. Records are the result of chance variations in at bats, home runs per hit, and other factors. The clustering of records is implied by the intermittency of the law of home runs. Home runs follow a stable Paretian distribution with infinite variance. The shape and scale of the distribution have not changed over the years. The greatest home run hitters are as rare as great scientists, artists, or composers.
JEL Classification: A10, C02, C16, C52, L51
Suggested Citation:
Suggested Citation
De Vany, Arthur S., Steroids and Home Runs (March 17, 2011). Economic Inquiry, Vol. 49, Issue 2, pp. 489-511, 2011. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1790150 or http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-7295.2009.00257.x
