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Investments in elite sport and sport events are often justified by governments with the trickle-down effect. Theoretically, this effect implies that people are inspired by sporting success, the personality of athletes, and hosting elite sport events to practice sport. However, previous research had difficulties in measuring, modeling, and providing evidence of this effect. The purpose of this study is to examine such external drivers of membership numbers in German sport clubs. This study uses unique data on male memberships from 1970 to 2011 in 12 Olympic sports. Under the control of economic variables (income, work time, gross domestic product [GDP]), the results of dynamic panel regression models show a significant positive effect of hosting a major sport event on the growth rate in memberships in the same year and several lagged effects for stars and sporting success. The results have implications for policy makers and the capacity management of nonprofit sport clubs.

Previous research has examined the effect of changes in upper management positions on actual organizational performance; however, the influence of leadership changes on performance expectations has been largely neglected. This gap in the literature is surprising given that failure to meet expectations leads to dismissal. The purpose of the present research is to analyze how coaching changes affect expectations of a sports team’s performance. Betting lines are used as performance expectations because they are unbiased forecasts of game outcomes. This study uses data from 13 seasons of the German Football Bundesliga. Significant positive timelagged effects on performance expectations are evident when examining underlying expected performance. These positive effects are evident 8 weeks after the leadership change, indicating that new leaders are expected to need some time before significant performance improvements are expected to occur.

This study investigates whether firms are willing to pay higher wages to workers who demonstrate consistent performance than to those whose performance is more volatile. A formal model reflects a production technology view, assuming the law of diminishing marginal product. This model suggests that a more consistent worker produces higher expected output and therefore receives a higher wage. The test of the model uses data from the National Basketball Association. The empirical data support the model: Players whose performances were more consistent than the performances of other players received higher wages on average. (JEL D41, J31, M52, Z20)