Abstract:

With the 1998 Pele Law eliminating transfer fees for players whose contracts had expired, Brazilian football provides an ideal setting to test the effect of non-compete agreements on wages. This analysis reveals that older players gained the most, whereas the wages of young players fell, which has wider implications for policies on the use of non-competes amongst low- and high-income employees, write Bernardo Guimaraes, Joao Paulo Pessoa, and Vladimir Ponczek.