Selection Biases in Sports Markets

24 Pages Posted: 13 Sep 2006

Date Written: April 2006

Abstract

This paper tests for the existence of two types of selection biases in sports markets. First, better-educated players and players of higher socioeconomic background have better outside opportunities. If they decide to take the risks of a professional soccer career they must be truly good in order to compensate their higher opportunity costs. Second, if talent is distributed equally among the population, we should not find any difference in the performance evaluation of white and nonwhite players. This potential difference provides a "market test" for discrimination. Using data on the Uruguayan Soccer League in the 2000 and 2001 seasons we find evidence of these two types of selection biases. Our estimations show a positive relationship between education and performance, education and promotions, socioeconomic background and performance, socioeconomic background and promotions and discrimination against nonwhite players in the national league but not with respect to international soccer markets.

Keywords: sports economics, selection, education

JEL Classification: I20, J70, L83

Suggested Citation

Gandelman, Nestor, Selection Biases in Sports Markets (April 2006). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=929181 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.929181

Nestor Gandelman (Contact Author)

Universidad ORT Uruguay ( email )

Bulevar España 2633
Montevideo, 11.300
Uruguay

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
107
Abstract Views
871
Rank
454,784
PlumX Metrics