Country of origin effects on the average annual values of NHL player contracts

Using data from 2005 to 2016, this paper examines if players in the National Hockey League (NHL) are being paid a positive differential for their services due to the competition from the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) and the Swedish Hockey League (SHL). In order to control for performance, we use two different large datasets, (N = 4046) and (N = 1717). In keeping with the existing literature, we use lagged performance statistics and dummy variables to control for the type of NHL contract. The first dataset contains lagged career performance statistics, while the performance statistics are based on the statistics generated during the years under the player’s previous contract. Fixed effects least squares (FELS) and quantile regression results suggest that player production statistics, contract status, and country of origin are significant determinants of NHL player salaries.