We study the determinants of superstar wage effects, asking whether productivity or popularity‐based explanations are more appropriate. We use longitudinal wage and performance data for workers (players) and firms (teams) from a particular market for sports talent: Major League Soccer (MLS) in the United States. We find evidence that the top earners, whose annual salaries are mostly not accounted for by their past MLS performances, when compared to other footballers, are paid more because they attract significantly higher stadium attendances and thus revenues. There is no evidence that higher residual salary spending by the teams affects their relative performance in football terms, or that the amounts the teams spend on actual talent affect attendances. Taken together, these results suggest that a popularity‐based explanation of superstar wage effects is appropriate among the top earners in this labor market.

中文翻译：

---

足球运动员市场中的极端薪水，表现和超级巨星

我们研究了超级巨星工资效应的决定因素，询问生产率或基于人气的解释是否更合适。我们使用来自特定体育人才市场（美国职业足球大联盟（MLS））的工人（球员）和公司（团队）的纵向工资和绩效数据。我们发现有证据表明，与其他足球运动员相比，收入最高的人（其年薪大部分不由其过去的MLS表现所占）获得了更高的报酬，因为他们吸引了更高的体育场出勤率并因此获得了收入。没有证据表明球队的剩余薪金支出增加会影响他们在足球方面的相对表现，或者球队花在实际才华上的金额会影响出勤率。在一起