Abstract
This study applies a dynamic panel estimation approach to analyze postseason playoff participation in Major League Baseball (MLB) based on 1985-2013 MLB seasonal data. Our findings suggest that a team's payroll exhibits an important role in predicting playoff participation. Inter-team payroll disparity has a stronger effect than intra-team salary disparity on increasing the chance of entering the playoffs. We also examine whether there is any persistency of postseason playoffs in MLB, finding that the chance of entering the playoffs in a current season does not depend on a team's winning status in the previous season.