We study the determinants of superstar wage effects, asking whether productivity or popularity-based explanations are more appropriate. We use longitudinal wage and performance data for workers (players) and firms (teams) from a particular market for sports talent: Major League Soccer (MLS) in...

Intuition and sports knowledge suggest the most talented professional footballers play for the best teams, i.e. positive assortative matching based on productivity. We consider Major League Soccer between 2007 and 2017. We estimate a wage equation, finding that player and team fixed wage...

Using the assignment of referees to European international association football matches played between 2002 and 2016, we ask whether judgements were biased according to the legacy of the Cold War. Referees from post-communist states favoured teams from non-communist states, but there was no...