Production and Efficiency in Association Football

Abstract

Despite their proliferation, sporting production function studies remain almost entirely U.S.-based, concentrating largely (although not exclusively) on baseball. Mainly due to a dearth of match-play statistics, there have been few studies of other, more interactive sports. This study attempts to partly fill the gap by using a new data source containing information on specific match-play variables to estimate a season-based production function for English Premiership association football teams. On the basis of computed residuals, the authors also identify those teams shown to be relatively efficient and inefficient in various aspects of match plays.