This paper develops a theory of contests based on perceived abilities, and provides evidence for the predictions of this theory using panel data from professional soccer. We examine how soccer players perform in club matches during the informal)nomination contests for national teams prior to an...

It is difficult to test the prediction that future career prospects create implicit effort incentives because researchers cannot randomly 'assign' career prospects to economic agents. To overcome this challenge, we use data from professional soccer, where employees of the same club face...

This paper develops a theory of contests based on perceived abilities, and provides evidence for the predictions of this theory using panel data from professional soccer. We examine how soccer players perform in club matches during the informal)nomination contests for national teams prior to an...