Victims or Beneficiaries?: Wage Premia and National Origin in the National Hockey League

Abstract

We add to the literature on migration and earnings by showing how migration affects one particularly highly skilled set of migrants: European hockey players. We examine salary differentials using a sample of newly signed free agents from the 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons. We also apply several new productivity measures that sharpen the specification of the wage equation, especially regarding productivity on defense and special teams play. We find that European players receive a premium relative to otherwise identical Canadian and US-born players. We present evidence that this premium is due to the greater mobility of European players and their resulting access to alternative employment possibilities.