We examine the evolution of salary distribution in the National Basketball Association using a panel of all full-time players. We identify three eras using structural break analysis, with breaks aligned to changes in Collective Bargaining Agreements that occurred at the time of lockouts. Our findings show that real salaries have risen substantially across all income levels but not at the same rate. Analyzing the Lorenz curve and Gini coefficient, we observe a period of increasing inequality during the 1990s, followed by a more equitable salary distribution in the early 2000s, and then a return to rising inequality in recent years.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) is divided into ten conferences. In the last few years there have been significant conference realignments as many schools have changed conferences. Using a novel panel dataset of high school football player recruitment from 2014 to 2023 at 120 different FBS university programs, we analyze the distribution of recruitment athletic talent across teams and conferences. While most larger universities in "Power Five" conferences recruit a similar number of five, four, and three-star recruits, we find that universities in the Southeastern Conference enjoy greater recruitment success, even after controlling for athletic program success at the university-level. In comparison, we find that smaller universities in "Group of Five" conferences are all at a disadvantage, recruiting fewer highly rated players. Our analysis suggests that conference affiliation is one of the major drivers of talent recruitment. Such recruitment imbalances yield broader implications because football team performance has been found to be associated with broader university success in terms of the quality and quantity of student applications, admissions, and endowment.

Investing in athletics is one approach that universities have taken to better appeal to potential students. We analyze whether football success, as measured by win percentage, is correlated with a higher number of student applicants. We find that for schools in the major "Power-Five" conferences, win percentage does not significantly change the number of students who apply. However, in the smaller "Group-of-Five" conferences, win percentage is associated with an increase in the number of applications. This is a particularly relevant finding because smaller universities may often be the ones struggling to maintain the size of their student body.

We explore how being named the top party school by the Princeton Review affects the U.S. News and World Report ranking, the peer ranking of an academic institution, and the academic profile of the university. We find that 'winning' the title of top party school lowers both the overall ranking and the peer ranking at the school. Additionally, the academic quality of students enrolling at the institution decreases. Our results suggest that the publicity of being named the top party school enhances a school's undesirable reputation, as measured by lowered rankings, and influences student enrolment decisions, particularly (and negatively) among top academic performing students.

A respondent finds a survey consequential if they believe their answer could influence the policy being addressed in the survey and if they believe that they will have to pay for the policy if implemented. Given these criteria, the literature has followed two paths to analyse consequentiality. The first uses a discrete method that separates respondents into consequential and inconsequential groups. The second interprets beliefs about consequentiality as continuous. We compare these approaches to identify their strengths and weaknesses. Using the discrete approach, we classify respondents into groups based on whether their responses satisfy various consequentiality criteria. We find that respondents in the inconsequential group have a willingness to pay that is insignificantly different from zero. For those in the consequential group, willingness to pay is positive and depends on the scope of the project. Treating consequentiality as continuous and using the hybrid choice model, we find that individuals who believe their responses will influence policy, policy consequentiality, and those who are concerned about the amenity are more likely to be in favour of the policy. Lastly, income is positively related to payment consequentiality.

Collegiate sports have a profound impact on a university beyond athletics. Successful athletics have been shown to have a positive impact on the institution. Likewise, athletic malfeasance has been shown to negatively impact the university. We analyse tournament bans in Division I college basketball as a signal for university quality in rankings (U.S. News and World Report's peer rankings), student quality, and other university measures. We find evidence that following a postseason tournament ban, applications from students in the top ten percent of their high school class decrease, some evidence that academic test scores decrease, and some evidence that the amount of alumni donations decrease. These results suggest that an athletic department's malfeasance leads to a decline in university quality. We do, however, find that peer rankings from faculty administrators fall the year of the ban, only to increase slightly two years after sanctions for athletic malfeasance.

We measure both the economic impact of a micro-event on the local economy and the consumer surplus benefits to participants using stated preference methods. We focus on a local participatory bike race called the “Beech Mountain Metric” (BMM), an amateur road bicycle event. We find that the economic impacts of the BMM declined from $301,000 in 2014 to $185,000 in 2016 as the event lost popularity. The consumer surplus to participants fell from $11,000 to $6000. The consumer surplus benefits are most likely relatively low in magnitude because there are many bike races in the region to choose from including Blood Sweat and Gears and the Blue Ridge Brutal, both more popular races. Considering the stated preference model, we replicate Whitehead and Wicker (Int J Tour Res 21:180–186, 2019) using the willingness-to-travel approach. Using an intensity of preference correction can mitigate for hypothetical bias, but using only individuals who are “definitely sure” about return visitation will overcorrect the problem. This result suggests that the definitely yes and the sum of the probably and definitely yes probabilities provide a useful estimate of the range of return visitation that could be used in micro-event planning.

Athletics can impact the entire university, and there is evidence that administrators' peer rankings are influenced by athletics as well. We analyze both the positive effect of winning championships and the negative effects of football bowl bans and vacated games. We find that championship effects are positive: increasing peer rankings, alumni giving, and student academic quality. Surprisingly, peer rankings increase the year of the football bowl ban but decrease the year after the ban. Additionally, there is evidence that bowl bans increase a school's acceptance rate and decrease academic quality at the sanctioned university, whereas vacated games lower alumni giving.

The racial and ethnic makeup of Major League Baseball (MLB) has changed over time with the percentage of U.S. born Blacks in the league peaking at eighteen percent in the late 1980s and then declining to only seven percent today. While the percentage of Latinos of all races has grown steadily over time reaching fifteen percent in 1990 and continuing to grow to twenty-eight percent today. To provide insight into how both race and ethnicity impacts career length during the decline in U.S. born Black players and rise in Latino players, we examine how country of origin affects career length and how race and ethnicity affects career length through the link between a player’s position and their race or ethnicity. Using a panel data set from 1990 to 2004, we find evidence that U.S. born Black (non-Latino) players have a lower probability of exiting the league when position controls are included. However, we do find that these U.S. born Black (non-Latino) players are more likely to play a position, outfielder, with a higher likelihood of exit than all other positions after controlling for performance and other player characteristics. These two effects cancel each other in exit analysis that excludes position as a control variable. We also find that foreign born Latino players have a higher probability of exit while Latino players who were born in the U.S. or the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico have no difference in the probability of exit than non-Latino White players.

This study examines how being named the top party school in the nation by the Princeton Review effects the quality of students at a university. The results indicate that being named the top party school lowers the number of top-tier students who choose to attend the university as measured by academic test scores. The study further finds that being named a top party school has no effect on student applications; however, this designation does lower the number of students who are admitted and who chose to enroll after the institution is named the top party school. These findings suggest that the publicity of being named the top party school enhances a school’s undesired reputation, thereby influencing student enrollment decisions, particularly among top-tier students.

As concerns about urban stormwater runoff become more acute and decentralized management gains popularity, there is a need to better understand public attitudes about stormwater management. We surveyed residents in Appalachia to assess knowledge about stormwater runoff, concerns about impacts, efforts to abate runoff on private property, and attitudes towards who should manage and pay for management. The survey also employed a split sample technique to assess how detailed, science-based information documenting negative impacts influences public concern and attitudes toward stormwater management. The results show the majority of respondents know what stormwater runoff is, but they know less about what its impacts are. About a third of respondents have implemented stormwater abatement measures on their property. There is no consensus on who should manage or pay for stormwater management. Providing more detailed science-based information had no influence on respondents' general concern about stormwater runoff or their attitudes about its management.

Using a panel study of universities, we find that football success, as measured either by an upset win or winning a national championship, increases applications and enrollment at a university. Surprisingly, we further find that losing an upset game also increases student enrollment numbers. When examining the academic quality of incoming students following one of these events, we encounter mixed results. Our findings indicate that winning a national championship lowers the number of students enrolling at a school from the top 10%, and between the top 10% to top 25%, of their high school class. However, we also find that winning either a national championship or an upset victory increases the average high school grade point average of students who choose to enroll at the school. Overall, our results suggest that athletics serve as a consumption amenity, leading students to apply and enroll at the university.

We use scientific information to develop a realistic hypothetical scenario for storm water management and water quality improvements in a stated preference valuation survey. We then provide different treatment levels of the scientific information to survey respondents. Using a hybrid choice model, we find that scientific information has no direct influence on referendum votes in favor of a storm water management program. However, different levels of scientific information have an indirect effect by influencing respondent concern about storm water runoff and by changing perceived understanding of the storm water management plan. We show that both of these effects, neither of which are apparent in standard logit models, have implications for valuing a storm water management plan. Our results suggest that researchers should be aware of how their choice on the information provided may have a subtle influence on responses in stated preference survey.

Collegiate sports programs are often characterized as the front porch of a university, serving to publicize the institution and draw students to the door. We analyze how winning either a national championship in men's NCAA Division One basketball or football influences the academic quality of students attending the university. Our findings suggest that winning a national championship in men's basketball slightly increases the quality of students at a university, while winning a football championship slightly lowers the quality of students who enroll at a school as measured by academic test scores and high school rank. Our results demonstrate that winning a national championship may serve as signal to prospective students of the amenity mix available at a university, thereby influencing student enrollment decisions.

Collegiate sports programs are often characterized as the front porch of a university serving to publicize the institution and draw students to the door. We analyze if athletic malfeasance captured in NCAA sanctions, either a postseason tournament ban in men’s basketball or a postseason bowl ban in football, negatively affects the profile of the sanctioned university. Our findings suggest that bans lower the academic quality of students as measured by test scores and class rank. Bans also decrease the amount of alumni giving and increases the student acceptance rate at the infracting university. Surprisingly, the school’s peer ranking, in U.S. News and World Report, increases at a university following a ban. Our results demonstrate that impropriety by an athletics program serves as a negative signal to prospective students and alumni regarding the overall quality of the university, but does not appear to affect that institution’s peer evaluators’ perceptions. Key Words: Education, (Anti) Flutie-Factor, NCAA, Athletic Malfeasance

National accolades and positive media attention are frequently lavished upon successful collegiate sports programs. Correspondingly, studies have demonstrated that universities often benefit from the achievements of their athletic teams by increasing the schools' application numbers, student quality, and alumni donations. This study demonstrates that the opposite effect occurs when a university's sports team is accused of engaging in impropriety. Our findings suggest that the negative attention given to the National Collegiate Athletic Association postseason tournament ban of a men's basketball program could serve as a signal to prospective students regarding the quality of the institution. This perception ultimately leads to a decrease in the infracting university's enrollment the year before the ban that then rebounds the year after the ban. However, the ban reduces the percentage of high-achieving students who choose to attend the university after the ban has been implemented.

Objective: We analyze how winning a national championship in men’s basketball influences both the quantity and academic quality of students attending the university. Methods: We use a fixed effect regression technique on a fourteen-year panel data set of universities to analyze the influence of winning a men’s basketball national championship on a university’s admissions and academic profile. Using this technique, we examine if student applications, admissions rate, academic yield or academic quality changes at the victorious institution. Results: Our findings suggest that winning a national championship has no effect on applications nor the admissions rate at a school, but does increase the enrollment yield for both male and female students. We also find that there is a slight increase in the quality of students who enroll as measured by academic test scores and high school rank. Conclusion: Our results indicate that winning an NCAA men’s basketball national championship does not serve to increase the number of applications or admissions rate to a school. The relatively minor increases in student quality and enrollment outlined in this study seem to contradict the idea that a successful men’s basketball program, as measured by winning a national championship, could be used as a marketing tool by a university to enhance its academic profile. Key Words:

A survey is consequential to a respondent if they believe their answer could influence the policy being addressed in the survey and if they will have to pay for the policy if implemented. We show that separating out respondents who find the survey inconsequential, even by very simple metrics such as a single question, goes a long way if the goal is to improve willingness to pay estimates. Using various follow up questions, we develop multiple thresholds to classify respondents into groups based on whether or not their responses satisfy the consequentiality criteria. Independent of the threshold, we find that respondents in the inconsequential group have a willingness to pay that is insignificantly different from zero. For those in the consequential group, marginal willingness to pay does not significantly depend on the threshold. These results lend additional support to the ‘knife-edge’ hypothesis. To provide additional insights we explore consequentiality using a hybrid choice model and find that the likelihood of payment consequentiality increases with income while respondents who find the survey policy consequential are more likely to be in favor of the policy. Key Words: consequentiality, stormwater management, stated preferences, hybrid choice models, generalized structural equation method

Community and specialized enforcement are recognized as important components of deterring antisocial behavior. To provide insights on the interplay between deterrence methods, we examine the empirical evolution of fighting and scoring in the National Hockey League using time series data. We identify structural changes that correlate with changes in player behavior and rules. In particular, we find that player behavior related to fighting changed 4 or 5 years prior to most rule changes aimed at reducing fighting. We conclude that the decline in fighting in hockey was more closely associated with a change in community rather than specialized deterrence methods. (JEL Z22, D71, L83)