Dominicans, decompression, and doping: three essays on the economics of sports

Chapter 3 uses panel data of performance statistics, salary and birth place from 1990 - 2008 to assess the return to team investment in undrafted Major League Baseball players. The study finds that over the first 3 years and over the first 6 years, undrafted players produce larger returns to investment than do drafted players over these time periods while international free agents produce smaller returns to investment than do drafted players. The impact of a reverse order international player draft is discussed in light of these findings. Chapter 4 develops a new measure of competitive balance that builds on the traditional binomial competitive balance ratio, R measure by incorporating end of season point outcomes in which games within the season meaningfully have ended in a draw. The measure is used to measure league parity in the professional sports leagues, the National Hockey League (NHL) the Russian Elite League (REL) and the Czech Republic League (CRL). Granger causality is then used to test the effects of an increase in the size of the labor pool in the NHL, due to the movement of players to the NHL from the REL and CRL. The corresponding effects on competitive balance of a decrease in the size of the labor pool in the REL and CRL are tested for as well. Chapter 5 generalizes the simple Performance Enhancing Drug Game to include the scenario in which a player receives a payout through the disqualification of the other player. The game is then generalized further to a four-person tournament to determine if there is more or less incentive to use performance enhancing drugs. Using examples from the 2009 US Open Tennis Tournament and the 1999 Winston Cup NASCAR Series, this study finds that relative to a single one-off game the tournament format creates less disincentive for athletes to use Performance Enhancing drugs and that a more equal distribution of prizes deters Performance Enhancing drug use among athletes.