Do Former College Athletes Earn More at Work? A Nonparametric Assessment
29 Pages Posted: 14 Dec 2005
There are 2 versions of this paper
Do Former College Athletes Earn More at Work? A Nonparametric Assessment
Do Former College Athletes Earn More at Work? A Nonparametric Assessment
Date Written: December 2005
Abstract
This paper investigates how students' collegiate athletic participation affects their subsequent labor market success. It uses newly developed distributional tests to establish that the wage distribution of former college athletes is significantly different from non-athletes and that athletic participation is a significant determinant of wages. Additionally, by using newly developed techniques in nonparametric regression, it shows that on average former college athletes earn a wage premium. However, the premium is not uniform, but skewed so that more than half the athletes actually earn less than non-athletes. Further, the premium is not uniform across occupations. Athletes earn more in the fields of business, military, and manual labor, but surprisingly, athletes are more likely to become high school teachers, which pays a relatively lower wage to athletes. We conclude that nonpecuniary factors play an important role in occupational choice, at least for many former collegiate athletes.
Keywords: nonparametric, generalized Kernel estimation, wage determination, earnings, sports economics, athletics
JEL Classification: C14, J10, J30, J40, L83
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
By Julian R. Betts and Jeffrey Grogger
-
Do High Grading Standards Affect Student Performance?
By David N. Figlio and Maurice E. Lucas
-
The Falling Time Cost of College: Evidence from Half a Century of Time Use Data
By Philip Babcock and Mindy Marks
-
The Impact of Homework on Student Achievement
By Ozkan Eren and Daniel J. Henderson