Team payroll and team performance in major league baseball: 1985-2002

Frederick Wiseman () and Sangit Chatterjee ()
Additional contact information
Frederick Wiseman: Northeastern University
Sangit Chatterjee: Northeastern University

Economics Bulletin, 2003, vol. 1, issue 2, 1-10

Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between team payroll and team performance in major league baseball from 1985 to 2002. The results indicate that the relationship has changed over time. Unlike the early years, there is now a much clearer relationship between payroll and performance. Specifically, in the latter part of the 1990s and continuing into the 21st century, the greater the team payroll and the more equally this payroll is distributed among team members, the better the on-field performance of the team. This is a problem of particular concern because of the growing disparity in team payrolls which, in turn, affects the competitive balance of the sport. This growing disparity was also at the heart of last year's contract negotiations between players and owners.

Keywords: Competitive; balance; Gini; coefficient; Perforamnce; Salary; structure; Major; League; Baseball (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003-10-17
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.accessecon.com/pubs/EB/2003/Volume1/EB-03A10003A.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-03a10003

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economics Bulletin from AccessEcon
Bibliographic data for series maintained by John P. Conley ().