Uncovering bias: using sports to teach about the economics of discrimination

Several papers in the economics of sport literature investigate human bias and discrimination. These behaviors manifest themselves in the referee, coaching, owner, player and fan arenas. This chapter illustrates how to leverage the plentiful data generated by professional and amateur sports to teach and learn about bias and discrimination. Specifically, students can study human capital wage theory, Becker's discrimination coefficient, statistical discrimination as well as employer and employee discrimination based on gender, age, race, and other identifying characteristics from the unique perspective of the sports industry. For example, minutes played in women's professional basketball can help determine whether coaches exhibit own race bias after controlling for player performance characteristics. Likewise, income from medals earned and endorsement contracts shed light the gender wage gap in elite swim. These lessons transfer easily from sports to other industries and cultural institutions. In this fashion, the study of sport easily opens pedagogical doors in applied microeconomic theory.