The impact of temperature on labor quality: Umpire accuracy in Major League Baseball

Author

Eric FESSELMEYER, Singapore Management UniversityFollow

Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

7-2021

Abstract

Using data from Major League Baseball, I compute an objective measure of the home plate umpire's work quality-the accuracy of his ball and strike calls during a game-and measure how it varies with temperature. I find that an increase in game-time temperature from between 70 and 80 degrees F to above 95 degrees F decreases an umpire's accuracy by a little less than a percentage point, which is a 5.5% increase in the pitch-calling error rate when evaluated at the mean error rate of 13.3%. Restricting the sample to borderline pitches increases the magnitude of the hot-weather effect on accuracy to over a percentage point. My results indicate that very hot temperatures have a nontrivial, negative effect on the labor supply quality of a highly trained and highly skilled workforce in an important, high-revenue, and high-stakes industry, and suggest that protecting workers from daily variation in temperature can improve labor productivity.

Keywords

heat stress, labor productivity, labor quality, temperature

Discipline

Labor Economics | Work, Economy and Organizations

Research Areas

Applied Microeconomics

Publication

Southern Economic Journal

Volume

88

Issue

2

First Page

545

Last Page

567

ISSN

0038-4038

Identifier

10.1002/soej.12524

Publisher

Wiley: 24 months - No Online Open

Citation

FESSELMEYER, Eric. The impact of temperature on labor quality: Umpire accuracy in Major League Baseball. (2021). Southern Economic Journal. 88, (2), 545-567.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cis_research_all/9

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Additional URL

http://doi.org/10.1002/soej.12524