Racial Integration as an Innovation: Empirical Evidence from Sports Leagues

This paper treats racial integration as an innovation in economic process in which economic entities find it advantageous to utilize potentially more productive inputs previously unavailable due to law, custom, or managerial discretion. Data on the racial integration of Major League Baseball and Atl...

Full description

Saved in:

Bibliographic Details
Published in:	The American economic review Vol. 92; no. 1; pp. 16 - 26
Main Authors:	Goff, Brian L., McCormick, Robert E., Tollison, Robert D.
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Nashville American Economic Association 01-03-2002
Subjects:	Athletic recruitment Baseball Baseball statistics Basketball Black athletes Blacks Coefficients College basketball Economic theory Entrepreneurship Games Hypotheses Innovation diffusion Innovations Integration Leisure economics Median family income Professional baseball Professional sports Race Race relations Racial integration Ratios School desegregation Segregation Social integration Sports Studies Technological innovation U.S.A Urban areas United States > US
Online Access:	Get full text
Tags:	Add Tag No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!

Description
Summary:	This paper treats racial integration as an innovation in economic process in which economic entities find it advantageous to utilize potentially more productive inputs previously unavailable due to law, custom, or managerial discretion. Data on the racial integration of Major League Baseball and Atlantic Coast Conference basketball are employed to address this issue. The central question examined is which type of team integrated first-losers or winners? The results strongly support the idea that entrepreneurship trumps competitive rivalry; that is, winning teams led the process of racial integration.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-1 content type line 23
ISSN:	0002-8282 1944-7981
DOI:	10.1257/000282802760015586