We find an inverted relation between a player's birthday and the likelihood of receiving the Ballon d'Or (awarded to the best football player in the world). We develop a multi-period skill formation model with selection into elite education. We show that those born late (underdogs) need to work...

This paper provides both descriptive and empirical evidence about the main youth labour market problems in Spain. Using the experiences of other EU economies as a benchmark, we document the performance of Spain as regards a wide set of youth labour market dimensions. These include employment and...

Transfers are big business in association football. This paper develops a generalized additive mixed model that aids managers in predicting how a football player is expected to perform in a new team. It does so by using event-level data from the Spanish and the Colombian football leagues. Using...

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...

We estimate the causal effects of ambient temperature on outdoor productivity, using the performance data of professional soccer players in the Chinese Super League (CSL) from 2014-2018. We exploit exogenous variation in the players’ exposure to temperature by matching it with hourly stadium...

I analyze the links between talent migration and cross-country inequality by exploiting the 1995 elimination of mobility restrictions on the European football labor market. I develop a simple model and employ an empirical dataset to estimate its parameters. Through simulation analysis, I compare...

This research documents ethnic employment gaps for labour-market entrants in the Netherlands in the period 2006-2016. We compare short-term and long-term differences in employment of Dutch graduates with graduates from Moroccan, Turkish, Antillean and Surinamese origin and other (non-)western...

This research documents ethnic employment gaps for labour-market entrants in the Netherlands in the period 2006-2016. We compare short-term and long-term differences in employment of Dutch graduates with graduates from Moroccan, Turkish, Antillean and Surinamese origin and other (non-)western...