IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/apeclt/v21y2014i1p1-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does salary discrimination persist for foreign athletes in the NBA?

Author

Listed:
  • Adam J. Hoffer
  • Ryan Freidel

Abstract

This study empirically examines Becker's (1971) wage discrimination theory using foreign-born National Basketball Association (NBA) players. Despite the rapid growth in the NBA, particularly in foreign markets, existing literature suggests that foreign-born players continue to be underpaid relative to players born in the United States. Becker's theory predicts that, over time, wage discriminators will be priced out of the market and that wages will eventually equilibrate. This study uses the most recent data, from the 2010 to 2011 NBA season, to test if foreign-born discrimination persists. The empirical results from this study reveal that not only have wages for foreign players caught up to the wages of their American counterparts, but foreign-born players received an average wage premium of approximately $900 000.

Suggested Citation

  • Adam J. Hoffer & Ryan Freidel, 2014. "Does salary discrimination persist for foreign athletes in the NBA?," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 1-5, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:apeclt:v:21:y:2014:i:1:p:1-5
    DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2013.829183
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13504851.2013.829183
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13504851.2013.829183?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Adam Hoffer & Jared A. Pincin, 2019. "Quantifying NFL Players’ Value With the Help of Vegas Point Spreads Values," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(7), pages 959-974, October.
    2. Candon Johnson & Eduardo Minuci, 2020. "Wage discrimination in the NBA: Evidence using free agent signings," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 87(2), pages 517-539, October.
    3. Candon Johnson & Joshua Hall, 2018. "Do National Basketball Association players need higher salaries to play in high tax states? Evidence from free agents," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(5), pages 359-361, March.
    4. Shao, Wen-Chao & Zhang, Han & Chou, Li-Chen & Ye, Xi-Xi, 2023. "Comparing athletes’ mastery of salary information before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from the national basketball association," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    5. Lorenzo Gasperi & Daniele Conte & Anthony Leicht & Miguel-Ángel Gómez-Ruano, 2020. "Game Related Statistics Discriminate National and Foreign Players According to Playing Position and Team Ability in the Women’s Basketball EuroLeague," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(15), pages 1-10, July.
    6. David J. Berri & Christian Deutscher & Arturo Galletti, 2015. "Born in the USA: National Origin Effects on Time Allocation in US and Spanish Professional Basketball," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 232(1), pages 41-50, May.
    7. Igan, Deniz & Pinheiro, Marcelo & Smith, John, 2015. "A study of a market anomaly: “White Men Can’t Jump”, but would you bet on it?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 13-25.
    8. Peter A. Groothuis & James Richard Hill, 2018. "Career Duration in the NBA," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(6), pages 873-883, August.
    9. James Richard Hill & Peter A. Groothuis, 2016. "Is There a Wage Premium or Wage Discrimination For Foreign-Born Players in the NBA?," Working Papers 16-11, Department of Economics, Appalachian State University.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:apeclt:v:21:y:2014:i:1:p:1-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEL20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.