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Customer discrimination in professional basketball: evidence from the trading-card market

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  • Eric Stone
  • Ronald Warren

Abstract

This paper presents evidence on the existence of customer racial discrimination in professional basketball from recent prices for the trading cards of former players in the National Basketball Association. Data were collected on the 258 active roster players in the NBA during the 1976-77 season, 133 of whom had cards issued that year. Maximum-likelihood estimation of a card-price equation is carried out, accounting both for the nonrandom selection of the players for whom cards exist and for left-censoring of the dependent variable. Overall, the empirical results suggest the absence of customer racial discrimination in the pricing of basketball trading cards. However, there is some evidence that the effect of career length on trading-card prices is lower for whites than for blacks, and that the card-price premium for players who subsequently coached in the NBA is lower for blacks than for whites.

Suggested Citation

  • Eric Stone & Ronald Warren, 1999. "Customer discrimination in professional basketball: evidence from the trading-card market," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(6), pages 679-685.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:31:y:1999:i:6:p:679-685
    DOI: 10.1080/000368499323896
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Clark Nardinelli & Curtis Simon, 1990. "Customer Racial Discrimination in the Market for Memorabilia: The Case of Baseball," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(3), pages 575-595.
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    4. Eleanor Brown & Richard Spiro & Diane Keenan, 1991. "Wage and Nonwage Discrimination in Professional Basketball: Do Fans Affect It?," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(3), pages 333-345, July.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Myers Caitlin Knowles, 2008. "Discrimination as a Competitive Device: The Case of Local Television News," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-28, August.
    2. Lawrence M. Kahn, 2006. "Race, Performance, Pay, and Retention Among National Basketball Association Head Coaches," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 7(2), pages 119-149, May.
    3. Matthew Parrett, 2011. "Customer Discrimination in Restaurants: Dining Frequency Matters," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 32(2), pages 87-112, June.
    4. Franc J.G.M. Klaasen & Jan R. Magnus, 2006. "Are Economic Agents Successful Optimizers? An Analysis through Service Strategy in Tennis," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 06-048/2, Tinbergen Institute.
    5. Klaassen, F.J.G.M. & Magnus, J.R., 2006. "Are Economic Agents Successful Optimizers? An Analysis Through Strategy in Tennis," Discussion Paper 2006-52, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    6. Depken II, Craig A. & Ford, Jon M., 2006. "Customer-based discrimination against major league baseball players: Additional evidence from All-star ballots," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 1061-1077, December.
    7. Corey J.M. Williams & Kole Reddig & Adam Nowak, "undated". "Collectible Pricing and Collector Utility: The Role of Production Commitments," Working Papers 24-03, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    8. Jeffrey Chu & Saralees Nadarajah & Emmanuel Afuecheta & Stephen Chan & Ying Xu, 2014. "A statistical study of racism in English football," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 48(5), pages 2915-2937, September.
    9. 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.
    10. Klaassen, Franc J.G.M. & Magnus, Jan R., 2009. "The efficiency of top agents: An analysis through service strategy in tennis," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 148(1), pages 72-85, January.
    11. B. Jay Coleman & J. Michael DuMond & Allen K. Lynch, 2008. "An Examination of NBA MVP Voting Behavior," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 9(6), pages 606-627, December.
    12. Eric Primm & Nicole Leeper Piquero & Robert M. Regoli & Alex R. Piquero, 2010. "The Role of Race in Football Card Prices," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 91(1), pages 129-142, March.
    13. Lawrence M. Kahn, 2009. "The Economics of Discrimination: Evidence from Basketball," NCER Working Paper Series 40, National Centre for Econometric Research.
    14. Francisco Rosas & Peter F. Orazem, 2014. "Is Self-Sufficiency for Women’s Collegiate Athletics a Hoop Dream? Willingness to Pay for Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tickets," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 15(6), pages 579-600, December.
    15. Olugbenga Ajilore, 2014. "Do white NBA players suffer from reverse discrimination?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 34(1), pages 558-566.

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