Rene Böheim, Mario Lackner,
"Returns to Education in Professional Football"
, in IZA Discussion Paper No. 5665, Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit, Bonn, Deutschland, 4-2011
Original Titel:
Returns to Education in Professional Football
Sprache des Titels:
Englisch
Original Kurzfassung:
After three years in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), collegiate football
players face a trade-off between spending more time in the NCAA and pursuing a career in
the National Football League (NFL) by declaring for the draft. We analyze the starting
salaries and signing bonuses for 1,673 rookies in the NFL, who entered the league between
2001 and 2009 through the NFL draft. We instrument the endogenous decision to enter the
professional market with a player?s month of birth. A player?s true talent is only imperfectly
observed and the instrument provides a causal link between time at college and subsequent
salaries in the NFL through the relative age effect. Our estimates suggest that a player
enjoys a 6% higher starting salary in the NFL, and a 15% higher first-year signing bonus, for
each year with the college team. On average, a rookie is estimated to earn $131,000 more in
his rookie season, if he enters the NFL one year later. Our analysis of a typical labor market
in professional sports shows that the returns to education in sports are sizeable and
surprisingly similar to returns to formal education. The results of our analysis provide
information for the players who are deciding about declaring for the draft, however, also
colleges and the teams in the NFL may find the results of interest.
Forschungs-