The number of people consuming sporting events has long interested economists. Although imperfect, it is a measure of the demand for a ‘peculiar’ type of good or service — the sporting event. It also provides some measure of the social pressure on individuals performing. That pressure can...

Using the assignment of referees to European international association football matches played between 2002 and 2016, we ask whether judgements were biased according to the legacy of the Cold War. Referees from post-communist states favoured teams from non-communist states, but there was no...

Intuition and sports knowledge suggest the most talented professional footballers play for the best teams, i.e. positive assortative matching based on productivity. We consider Major League Soccer between 2007 and 2017. We estimate a wage equation, finding that player and team fixed wage...

We study the determinants of superstar wage effects, asking whether productivity or popularity-based explanations are more appropriate. We use longitudinal wage and performance data for workers (players) and firms (teams) from a particular market for sports talent: Major League Soccer (MLS) in...