We use data from professional tennis to measure the causal effect of past on current performance for women and men. Identification relies on exogenous shocks to the probability of facing a contested game, which is a previous stage of competition with strong resistance. We find fundamental gender...

We use data from top-level soccer to examine determinants of individual misbehaviour in team contests. Our estimates indicate a significant positive and non-linear relationship between a player's age and (relative) ability on the one hand and the tendency to misbehave on the other. These...

Does the supply of a welfare state create its own demand? Many economic scholars studying welfare arrangements refer to Say's law and insinuate a self-destructive welfare state. However, little is known about the empirical validity of these assumptions and hypotheses. We study the dynamic effect...

This paper analyzes the labor market for collegiate football players and argues that professional football teams have discriminating preferences when making their hiring decisions. An empirical analysis of panel data of 32 NFL teams in recent seasons is carried out to test the effects of such...

After three years in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), collegiate football players face a trade-off between spending more time in the NCAA and pursuing a career in the National Football League (NFL) by declaring for the draft. We analyze the starting salaries and signing...

We study the effect of the size of the welfare state on family outcomes in OECD member countries. Exploiting exogenous variation in public social spending, due to varying degrees of political fractionalization (i.e. the number of relevant parties involved in the legislative process), we show...

We analyze if female athletes differ from male athletes in their competitive behavior, using data from high jump and pole vault competitions. We estimate if female athletes use risky strategies as often as male athletes and whether or nor their returns to risky strategies differ. Returns to...

In this paper, we analyze the effect of market power on the share of females in top management positions using data from a market in which some firms have market power due to an institutionalized cartel. We investigate collegiate athletics and interpret coaches as top-level managers or chief...

This article analyzes top-level basketball competitions and measures the effect of superstar presence on effort provision in rank-order tournaments. I extend the previous literature to team competitions for male and female teams, as well as different institutional settings over a long period of...

We analyze the effect of the coach's gender on risk-taking in women sports teams using data taken from National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball games. We find that the coach's gender has a sizable and significant effect on risk-taking, a finding that is robust to several...