Superstar Productivity and Pay: Evidence from the Australian Football League

We use game-level data from the Australian Football League (AFL) to examine superstar workers' productivity and pay. By exploiting teams' injury-induced line-up changes between games, we show that, compared with replacement-level players, superstars increase their likelihood of winning away games by approximately 15 percentage points. While then that betting markets appear appropriately price superstars' marginal productivity, present back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest teams underpay players at least 30 per cent. discuss how inaccurate performance evaluations, labour market regulations, long-term back-loaded contracts, clubs' attempts reduce harmful intra-team pay disparities on-field success as a form payment-in-kind may explain our findings.