Is body mass human capital in sports? Outcome of globalization of sumo wrestling and generation of human capital in Japan

Using a data set for all sumo wrestlers in the post-World War II period, this paper investigates how wrestlers’ body mass index (BMI) is associated with wrestlers’ winning rate and absence rate. Further, the effect of BMI is compared between an early period (before the emergence of foreign wrestlers) and latter period (after the emergence of foreign wrestlers). After accounting for endogenous bias using instrumental variables, the key findings are that (1) there is no positive relation between the BMI and winning rate in either the early or latter period and (2) there is a positive relation between the BMI and absence rate in the latter period but not in the early period.