Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/105816 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
DIW Discussion Papers No. 1432
Publisher: 
Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW), Berlin
Abstract: 
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 different external career opportunities depending on their nationality. We test whether the career prospect of being selected to a Euro Cup national team affects players' pre-Cup performances, using nationals of countries that did not participate in the Euro Cup as a control group. We find that the Euro Cup career prospect has positive effects on the performances of players with intermediate chances of being selected to their national team, but negative effects on the performances of players whose selection is very probable. Our findings have implications for the incentive effects of within-firm promotions and of external career opportunities.
Subjects: 
incentives
effort
career concerns
reputation
contests
tournaments
promotions
JEL: 
D23
L29
M52
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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