Do Tournaments with Superstars Encourage or Discourage Competition?

Michael Babington (), Sebastian Goerg and Carl Kitchens
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Michael Babington: Florida State University

No 10755, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: To test and replicate the superstar effect reported by Brown (2011) we empirically study contests where a single entrant has an endogenously higher probability of winning. Unlike the previous literature, we test for the presence of the superstar effect in several different contexts. Ultimately, we collect and explore data from four sources: men's and women's professional golf, and men's and women's professional alpine skiing. Our baseline study of men's professional golf serves as a replication of Brown's (2011) study. Empirically, we find little robust evidence of the superstar effect in any of our datasets. In our replication exercise, we approximate the findings of Brown (2011), however, we cannot reject the null that the presence of a superstar has no impact on high ranked competitors. In our other settings, we cannot reject the null that superstars have no influence on the performances of highly ranked competitors.

Keywords: incentives; tournaments; superstar (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C2 D03 J3 M52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48 pages
Date: 2017-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-spo
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Published - published in: Journal of Sports Economics, 2020, 21 (1), 44-63.

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Journal Article: Do Tournaments With Superstars Encourage or Discourage Competition? (2020)
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