Birthplace Diversity and Team Performance

Using hand-collected and web-scraped data on 7,208 matches and 3,266 players from the highest division of German male football, this paper examines how birthplace diversity affects team performance. The results of two instrumental variable analyses suggest that birthplace diversity has a hump-shaped effect on team performance. To explain our result, we argue that nationally diverse teams have a wider range of skills and face greater communication barriers.

Krieger, Tommy and Enzo Brox (2022), Birthplace Diversity and Team Performance, Labour Economics 79 , 102288