Henderson, Daniel J., Alexandre Olbrecht, and Solomon W. Polachek. 2006. “Do Former College Athletes Earn More at Work? A Nonparametric Assessment.” Journal of Human Resources 41(3): 558–577.
This paper investigates how students’ collegiate athletic participation affects their subsequent labor market success. 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 nonathletes. 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, jobs that pay relatively lower wages to athletes
Daniel J. Henderson is an assistant professor of economics at the State University of New York at Binghamton ( Binghamton University). Alexandre Olbrecht is an assistant professor of economics at the Anisfield School of Business at Ramapo College of New Jersey. Solomon W. Polachek is a distinguished professor of economics at the State University of New York at Binghamton ( Binghamton University). The authors would like to thank Cliff Kern, Jeff Racine and two anonymous referees for useful comments on the subject matter of this paper. The research on this project has also benefited from participants of the Binghamton University Departmental Seminar Series, Ramapo College of New Jersey Departmental Seminar as well as participants at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the Canadian Economic Association, Toronto. Finally, the authors thank James Long for providing the data necessary for this project along with his SAS code. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning January 2007 through December 2010 from Daniel J. Henderson, Department of Economics, State University of New York, Binghamton, NY 13902-6000, e-mail: djhender@binghamton.edu. Contact information: Daniel J. Henderson, Department of Economics, State University of New York, Binghamton, NY 13902-6000, e-mail: djhender@binghamton.edu (607) 777-4480, Fax: (607) 777-2681. Alexandre Olbrecht, Anisfield School of Business, Ramapo College of New Jersey, Mahwah, NJ 07430-1024, (201) 684-7346, Fax: (201) 684-7957, e-mail: aolbrech@ramapo.edu. Solomon W. Polachek, Department of Economics, State University of New York, Binghamton, NY 13902-6000, (607) 777-6866, Fax: (607) 777-2681, e-mail: polachek@binghamton.edu.