| Abstract: |
This paper takes advantage of the availability of rich panel data on the
mobility of talented football players, and the performances of national
leagues and teams to quantify the effect of the reduction in mobility
restrictions, the 1995 Bosman rule, on global efficiency and cross-country
inequality in football. I built a micro-founded model endogenizing migration
decisions, inequality and training; I estimated its structural parameters; and
I used numerical simulations to compare actual data with a counterfactual
no-Bosman trajectory. I found that the Bosman rule (i) increased global
efficiency in football by 20% (ii) increased cross-leagues inequality in
performance by 25% in terms of output, and (iii) decreased inequality across
national teams by 70% .Countries from Africa, South (except Argentina and
Brazil) and Central America have produced more talents and benefitted from
brain-gain type effects. My results also show that this brain-gain mechanism
is the major source of efficiency gains. However, it plays only a minor role
in explaining the rising inequality. |