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Transfer spending in the English premier league: the haves and the have nots

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Richard C.K. Burdekin  and
Michael Franklin
Michael Franklin*
Affiliation:
Claremont McKenna College, California
*
Corresponding author e-mail: richard.burdekin@claremontmckenna.edu
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Abstract

Transfer spending among English Premier League clubs has increased drastically since the inception of the league, often funded by extremely wealthy owners who began purchasing majority stakes in clubs. Using data from the Deloitte Annual Review of Football Finance, we allow for different tiers of football clubs representing the haves and the have nots as well as a comparison between the first and second decades of the Premier League. Our finding that heightened spending has improved on-field performance only at the expense of hurting profitability is in line with win maximisation surmounting profit maximisation in today's Premier League.

Keywords

English footballtransfer spendingprofit maximizationG15
Type
Research Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 232 , May 2015 , pp. R4 - R17
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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Footnotes

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2014 Western Economic Association meetings in Denver, Colorado, 27 June–1 July. The authors thank Stefan Szymanski and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and are grateful to Lu Chuyuan for valuable research assistance.

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