Document Type

Article

Publication Version

Version of Record

Publication Date

2013

Abstract

The purpose of our research is to investigate whether the high school basketball player is better off attending or forgoing his college career to enter the NBA directly out of high school. We measure "better off' by total salary earned in the first ten years of a player's NBA career. Using both OLS and a Heckit model, to control for possible sample selection bias, our results suggest that although college is an investment period for athletes, rational athletes do understand the opportunity cost of each year spent in college, with the most talented players forgoing their college education altogether.

Publication Title

The Journal of Economics (MVEA)

Volume

39

Issue

1

First Page

25

Last Page

44

Format

application/pdf

Language

en

Publisher

Missouri Valley Economics Association

Rights

Copyright © 2013 Missouri Valley Economics Association

Comments

This work was published in The Journal of Economics (MVEA) (2013) 39:1.

Included in

Economics Commons

COinS