The Hazard of Being an English Football League Manager: Empirical Estimates from the 2002/3 Season

Abstract

This paper uses data drawn from the English Football League to model hazard rates for club managers in the 2002/3 season. Nearly one-third of managers involuntarily exited employment status with their club in that season. We model the hazard on the basis of a spell at risk, rather than the individual, using a standard logistic model. The role of neglected heterogeneity is also examined using random and fixed effects logistic models within the discrete-time setting. League position at the start of the spell at risk is found to be the most important determinant of a manager’s exit. A variety of individual specific human capital covariates were found to be unimportant in determining the hazard and no role for unobservable heterogeneity as captured by random effects was detected.econometrics; sports