Does Salary Discrimination by Nationality Exist The Case of Nippon Professional Baseball League.docVIP

Modern Economy, 2013, 4, 93-101 /10.4236/me.2013.42012 Published Online February 2013 (/journal/me) Does Salary Discrimination by Nationality Exist? The Case of Nippon Professional Baseball League Wen-Jhan Jane , Sheng-Tung Chen , Min-Hua Kuo 1* 2 3 1 Department of Economics, Shih Hsin University, Taipei, Taiwan Department of Public Finance, Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan Department of Finance, Shih Hsin University, Taipei, Taiwan 2 3 Email: krisenwerk@ * Received November 27, 2012; revised December 28, 2012; accepted January 29, 2013 ABSTRACT This article focuses on the issue of nationality as related to salary discrimination in the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) league. Salary data for 663 players during the period from 2000 to 2008 was collected, and Quantile Regression (QR) was employed to investigate the nationality discrimination in salary. The main finding indicates that, on average, international players were paid 54.7% - 57.3% more than domestic players ceteris paribus. QR results show that the positive effect of nationality on salary is larger for players with relatively higher salaries. The finding indicates that an international player’s salary premium increases with salary. Keywords: Nippon Professional Baseball; Quantile Regression; Reservation Salary; Salary Discrimination 1. Introduction international players a high salary. Moreover, interna- tional players from Asia are apt to accept a discrimina- tory salary as it is likely higher than that offered in their home countries. Due to the rapid progress of information and communi- cation technology (ICT), the Nippon Professional Base- ball (NPB) league has begun to expand its global make- up. The ratio of international players has increased stead- ily from 2.21% in the 2000 season to 6.55% in 2008. As the literature in sports economics has widely e