Expert Workers, Performance Standards, and On-the-Job Training: Evaluating Major League Baseball Umpires

Abstract

This paper examines the role of changes in monitoring, technological innovation, performance standards, and collective bargaining as they relate to performance improvements among Major League Baseball umpires from 1988 through 2013. I find structural changes in performance concurrent with known bargaining struggles, and substantial improvements in performance after implementation of incentive pay and new technological monitoring and training. Not only do umpires improve performance in expected ways, but the variability in umpire performance has also decreased substantially. These changes have reduced offensive output often attributed to a crackdown on performance enhancing drug use in MLB.

Keywords: Merit Pay, Tournaments, Training, Baseball, Umpires

JEL Classification: L83, J42, J5