Date of Award
8-2013
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Legacy Department
Economics
Committee Chair/Advisor
Hanssen, F. Andrew
Committee Member
Sauer , Raymond
Committee Member
Tollison , Robert
Abstract
This paper examines the wage differential between Latino and American baseball players in the Major Leagues. First, a literature review is prepared to look at how, historically, economists have gone about comparing different races' and ethnicities' compensation in professional sports. Historically, these comparisons are made between white and African American players. Next, a detailed look at the dataset that is used in the paper, which is from the Sean Lahman 2012 Baseball Database which consists of data going back to 1871, although this paper's scope is only for the years between 1985 and 2009. Regressions are then prepared in the fashion that follows Lawrence Kahn's seminal work in the field, and we find that there does seem to quite a significant differential in American and Latino baseball players. I find that there does seem to be a significant wage gap between Latinos and American players, that Latino players do seem to earn, on average, higher salaries. Following, I discuss possible explanations for this that are obviously present in the regression. Concluding, I discuss possible future work and what could be done to improve.
Recommended Citation
Kusterman, Kristopher, "EXPLAINING THE WAGE DIFFERENTIAL BETWEEN AMERICAN AND LATINO BASEBALL PLAYERS IN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL" (2013). All Theses. 1719.
https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses/1719