Are footballers rewarded for luck? A surprise test

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Stefan Szymanski, University of Michigan

Version:  View help for Version V1

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Are_footballers_paid_for_luck_.pdf application/pdf 348 KB 01/23/2026 06:28:AM
Surprise_Jan2026.do text/plain 33.1 KB 01/23/2026 05:31:AM
surprise2.dta text/html 122.3 KB 01/15/2025 06:20:AM

Project Citation: 

Szymanski, Stefan. Are footballers rewarded for luck? A surprise test. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2026-01-23. https://doi.org/10.3886/E244590V1

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary
Performance related pay is a solution to an incentive problem that is optimal when inputs are unobservable and employees lack incentives to provide effort; it also makes pay contingent on luck (Bertrand and Mullainathan (2001)). This paper uses wage payments by professional English football clubs and bookmaker betting odds to test whether player pay is contingent on luck. The results suggest that luck plays no role in determining player wages. This is consistent with the commonsense view that player inputs are largely observable or motivated by career concerns, avoiding the need for performance related pay.



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V1 [2026-01-23]

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