Strategic behaviours in a labour market with mobility-restricting contractual provisions: evidence from the National Hockey League

Luca Fumarco, Neil Longley, Alberto Palermo and Giambattista Rossi

Oxford Economic Papers, 2024, vol. 76, issue 4, 1189-1203

Abstract: We follow workers’ performance along an unbalanced panel dataset over multiple years and study how performance varies at the end of fixed-term contracts, in a labour market where some people face a mobility-restricting clause (i.e. a noncompete clause). Focusing on the labour market of the National Hockey League, we analyse players’ performance data and contracts with a fixed-effects estimator to address empirical limitations in previous studies. We find that, on average, National Hockey League players’ performance does not vary. However, our estimations detect substantially heterogeneous behaviours, depending on tenure, perceived expected performance, and mobility. Only younger players (i.e. restricted free agents) with high expected mobility but low expected performance tend to behave strategically and perform better. Differently, older players (i.e. unrestricted free agents) with high expected mobility tend to underperform, as the option of moving back to European tournaments is more appealing.

JEL-codes: D82 J24 J33 M52 Z22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Working Paper: Strategic Behaviours in a Labour Market with Mobility-Restricting Contractual Provisions: Evidence from the National Hockey League (2024)
Working Paper: Strategic Behaviours in a Labour Market with Mobility-Restricting Contractual Provisions: Evidence from the National Hockey League (2024)
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