Are men's and women's college basketball players “Pigouvian” exploited?

Abstract

AbstractUsing total revenue, previous research finds college basketball players generate millions of dollars in marginal revenue product (MRP). We are skeptical of using total revenue data. Instead, we use total variable revenue since using fixed revenues can over‐estimate a team's marginal revenue and therefore a player's MRP. Comparing MRP to the players average grant‐in‐aid, we find that for public Division I universities, a little over one‐quarter of men's basketball players are exploited and a little over one‐tenth of women's basketball players are exploited.