Date of Award

2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Economics

First Advisor

Qi Ge

Abstract

In this paper, I calculate the marginal revenue product of 30 four-year college basketball players in an attempt to add to the debate surrounding the payment of college athletes. I compare the MRP of each player to tuition costs to determine their lost earnings. Previous studies have provided evidence that college athletes make more money for their schools than they are being compensated for. My results are consistent with this. My model estimates that on average these 30 college basketball players are generating $2,059,970 in revenue over four seasons and their lost earnings are on average $1,975,918. Additional analysis shows that 17 out of the 30 basketball players will be compensated for their losses experienced in college in 3 seasons or less in the NBA.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Included in

Economics Commons

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