Incentives and superstars on the LPGA Tour

Abstract

Following Ehrenberg and Bognanno (1990a Ehrenberg, RG and Bognanno, ML. 1990a. Do tournaments have incentive effects?. Journal of Political Economy, 98: 1307–24. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], b Ehrenberg, RG and Bognanno, ML. 1990b. The incentive effects of tournaments revisited: evidence from the European PGA Tour. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 43: 74-S–88-S. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), this study explores the role of incentives on the 2000 LPGA Tour. Overall, it finds them to have limited effectiveness. Several possible explanations are considered, including unmeasured differences in both abilities and courses and variations in the distribution of prizes across tournaments. The existence of a ‘superstar effect’ is also considered.