The relative age effect on labour market outcomes - evidence from Italian football

Research question: This study investigates whether the relative age effect (RAE) persists in the long term and affects Italian-born footballers' performance and wages. Research methods: A unique dataset on 1700 individual players' remuneration and performance was collected and analysed through the chi-square goodness-of-fit, the Spearman's rank correlation and an econometric model. Results and findings: This study contributes to the literature by providing dear results on long-term RAE. We find evidence of the RAE in terms of representativeness, which means that, in an age group, players born relatively early are over-represented, while those born relatively late are under-represented, even accounting for national birth trends. Moreover, although they perform similarly, the gross wages of players born relatively late are statistically significantly lower than those of players born relatively early.