When drains and gains coincide: migration and international football performance

We analyze the impact of human capital formation through migration on performance bystudying the impact of football players’ migration to foreign clubs on their origin countries’international football performance. In our model, migration to foreign clubs allows players toimprove their skills. Its impact on national team performance is positive and increasing with thedifference in quality between foreign and home country clubs. To test this prediction, we havecollected information on the club of employment of national team players for most countries inthe world. We have constructed an original migration index, weighing each emigrant player bythe quality of the foreign club employing him. We find strong and robust support for thetheoretical prediction that migration of national team players improves international footballperformance, particularly for countries with lower quality football clubs.

Publication year:2013