Professor Robert Simmons
Professor
Economics
The Management SchoolLancaster University
Bailrigg
Lancaster
LA1 4YX
Research Interests
Labour economics: economics of working time; employment effects of working time reductions in Germany; union bargaining over working time; efficiency wage models; adverse selection models; personnel economics.
Sports economics: earnings of sports stars; pay and performance of players and teams in US and European sports; spatial and match-by-match models of attendance demand in sports; economics of sports broadcasting;
models of outcome uncertainty and competitive balance in sports leagues; betting markets in sports.
Profile
Rob Simmons is a Lecturer in Economics. He was educated at University of Warwick and University of Manchester and holds a doctorate from University of Leeds. Dr Simmons specialises in labour economics and sports economics. He has published on theoretical and empirical aspects of labour economics, covering areas such as union bargaining over working time, demand-side analysis of working time and efficiency wage models including adverse selection and shirking behaviour. He has been engaged as a consultant to the International Labour Organisation. Dr Simmons is a member of the European Association of Labour Economists and he has presented several papers at their annual conference. Currently, Dr Simmons is pursuing interests in personnel economics, including the impact of changing human resource management practices on the labour market. Dr Simmons also has an international reputation as a sports economist. He has researched into several topics in sports economics, many of which have a labour market focus. He has published pioneering papers on attendance demand in football using a travel cost methodology, on football transfer markets using a sample selection model and on salary determination in Italian football using a rarely published data set. He is currently working on several topics in sports economics, including a new theoretical model of sports league behaviour, economic analysis of sports broadcasting, the labour market for players in the US National Football League and further analysis of earnings in Italian football. Dr Simmons is a member of the editorial board of Journal of Sports Economics. He was also recently a co-convenor of the ESRC financed Sports, Arts and Leisure Economics Study Group. Outside work, Rob is married with two children and his leisure interests include cinema, travel, keeping fit and football refereeing.
Current Teaching
Undergraduate: Econ 211 Introduction to Mathematical Economics
Recent publications
- The hidden costs of high performance work practices: evidence from a large German steel company
Frick, B., Goetzen, U. & Simmons, R. 2013 In: Industrial and Labor Relations Review. 66, 1, p. 198-224. 27 p.
Journal article - The returns to scarce talent: Footedness and player renumeration in European soccer
Bryson, A., Frick, B . & Simmons, R. 2013 In: Journal of Sports Economics.
Journal article - The impact of individual and collective reputation on wine prices: Empirical evidence from the Mosel valley
Simmons, R. & Frick, B. 2013 In: Journal of Business Economics.
Journal article - The Effects of Coworker Heterogeneity on Firm-Level Output: Assessing the Impacts of Cultural and Language Diversity in the National Hockey League
Kahane, L., Longley, N. & Simmons, R. 03/2013 In: Review of Economics and Statistics. 95, 1, p. 302-314. 13 p.
Journal article - Favoritism and referee bias in European soccer: Evidence from the Spanish League and the UEFA Champions' League
Buraimo, B., Simmons, R. & Maciaszczyk, M . 31/07/2012 In: Contemporary Economic Policy. 30, 3, p. 329-343. 15 p.
Journal article
