Performance under pressure and its impact on compensation: Evidence from professional basketball

IF 2.5 2区经济学 Q2 ECONOMICS

Journal of Economic Psychology Pub Date : 2025-02-27 DOI:10.1016/j.joep.2025.102807

Helmut M. Dietl , Steffen Q. Mueller , Marco Henriques Pereira , Markus Lang

引用次数: 0

Abstract

This paper investigates how performance in high- vs. low-pressure situations affects employee compensation. Leveraging sports as a natural laboratory, we analyze National Basketball Association (NBA) play-by-play data from 2004 to 2017 in combination with seasonal player salaries, using “clutch time”—the closing minutes during a game when the outcome is at stake and performance pressure is at its peak—as an objective criterion of performance pressure. Our regression analysis provides evidence of a salary premium for players who can excel under pressure. Whereas lower-paid players’ performance does not differ much by pressure level, higher-paid players show exceptionally strong performance during critical phases of a game. We demonstrate that the ability to excel under pressure is greatly valued in professional basketball, raising the question of whether this ability is compensated not only in other sports but also in other sectors of the labor market.

查看原文本刊更多论文

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Journal of Economic Psychology Multiple-

CiteScore

5.20

自引率

31.40%

发文量

审稿时长

63 days

期刊介绍： The Journal aims to present research that will improve understanding of behavioral, in particular psychological, aspects of economic phenomena and processes. The Journal seeks to be a channel for the increased interest in using behavioral science methods for the study of economic behavior, and so to contribute to better solutions of societal problems, by stimulating new approaches and new theorizing about economic affairs. Economic psychology as a discipline studies the psychological mechanisms that underlie economic behavior. It deals with preferences, judgments, choices, economic interaction, and factors influencing these, as well as the consequences of judgements and decisions for economic processes and phenomena. This includes the impact of economic institutions upon human behavior and well-being. Studies in economic psychology may relate to different levels of aggregation, from the household and the individual consumer to the macro level of whole nations. Economic behavior in connection with inflation, unemployment, taxation, economic development, as well as consumer information and economic behavior in the market place are thus among the fields of interest. The journal also encourages submissions dealing with social interaction in economic contexts, like bargaining, negotiation, or group decision-making. The Journal of Economic Psychology contains: (a) novel reports of empirical (including: experimental) research on economic behavior; (b) replications studies; (c) assessments of the state of the art in economic psychology; (d) articles providing a theoretical perspective or a frame of reference for the study of economic behavior; (e) articles explaining the implications of theoretical developments for practical applications; (f) book reviews; (g) announcements of meetings, conferences and seminars.