Discrimination in Hiring Versus Retention and Promotion: An Empirical Analysis of Within-Firm Treatment of Players in the NFL

Abstract

If the costs and benefits of discriminating at the hiring stage differ from those at the retention and promotion stages, as recent evidence suggests, the effect of an individual's race on a firm's hiring decision should differ from its effect on the firm's retention and promotion decisions. This paper presents the first direct empirical test of this proposition. Using data of players drafted into the National Football League (NFL), we show that after controlling for draft selection, position, team, draft year, collegiate division, and team wins the prior season, white players have a 0.13 lower probability of having an active contract and start 1.56 games less than nonwhite players. When compared with the average probability of a drafted player having an active contract, 0.48, and the average number of starts, 2.6 games, these results provide strong evidence that nonwhite players face hiring discrimination in the NFL but are treated more equitably in retention and promotion decisions.

The Demand for Younger and Older Workers

“…White players receive significantly later draft positions than non-Whites, a pattern that tracks with Conlin and Emerson's (2006) finding that non-White players more likely remain on their drafting clubs when observed as many as 3 years later. Neither of the institutional control variables significantly influences rookie draft positions; the role of the Goodell commissionership will have more meaning in extended analysis that incorporates interactions of this indicator variable with measures of productivity and risk.…”

Stifling Workplace Activism: The Consequences of Anthem Protests for NFL Players

“…Anthem protesters in the NFL were almost exclusively African American (Niven, 2019). There is research that suggests race affects the evaluation, treatment, and compensation of NFL players to the detriment of African Americans (Kahn, 1992;Dufur and Feinberg, 2009;Bigler and Jeffries, 2008;Conlin and Emerson, 2005). Could the significant gap in treatment of protesters and nonprotesters reflect a response to race rather than to political activity?…”

Job Characteristics and Labor Market Discrimination in Promotions

“…Bellemore (2001) Professional baseball Author's creation;1968-1969, 1976-1977, 1991-1997; 1743 observations Promotion rates to major league are 5.2% less likely for blacks, 5.4% less likely for Hispanics N.A. Conlin and Emerson (2006) Pinkston 2009;and Kahn 2013) and to literature on symmetric learning (e.g., Gibbons and Waldman 1999;Altonji and Pierret 2001;Altonji 2005;Lange 2007; DeVaro and Morita 2013). The application of asymmetric learning to the context of promotions, in particular the idea that promotions serve as signals of worker ability, was first developed in Waldman (1984a), and this idea has received considerable attention in the subsequent theoretical literature (e.g., Milgrom and Oster 1987;Ricart i Costa 1988;Waldman 1990;Bernhardt 1995;Chang and Wang 1996;Z abojn ık and Bernhardt 2001;Owan 2004;Golan 2005;Waldman and Zax 2015).…”