Salary Discrimination in National Basketball Association Essay

Salary Discrimination in National Basketball Association - Essay Example The paper tells that sports statistics create a great opportunity to measure the relationship between productivity and income. Since its integration in the 1940s, professional basketball has achieved the highest level of African American representation of the major professional sports in the United States. Labor market discrimination is defined as unequal treatment of equally qualified workers. A great deal of research on labor market discrimination has focused on the racial pay differences of NBA athletes. Now, in existing national basket ball literature on pay discrimination, it is now well documented that Blacks earn less than their White counterpart. For example, using statistics drawn from the national basketball league of 1986, Khan & Sherer found a ceteris paribus black salary short fall of about 20%. Consumers (NBA FANS) may have discriminatory preferences for white stars but no real preference among black and white athletes of average ability. Found out that, whiter teams te nded to be located in whiter metropolitan areas. Given their results, these authors concluded that their observed salary shortfalls were due primarily, to customer discrimination by white basketball fans. However, several recent studies have cast doubt on these results. Bodvarsson and Brastow performed a salary regression similar to the Kahn and Sherer specification and found no evidence of racial discrimination. Their methodology, however, was based on the assumption that consumer discrimination is pervasive throughout the ability distribution.