Customer-based discrimination against major league baseball players: Additional evidence from All-star ballots

This paper extends the analysis of [Hanssen, A., Andersen, T., 1999. Has discrimination lessened over time? A test using baseball's All-star vote. Economic Inquiry 37, 326–352] using All-star votes from 1990 through 2000 to investigate customer-based discrimination in Major League Baseball (MLB). The previous findings of no evidence of customer-based racial discrimination against minority players are confirmed. However, the evidence suggests that after controlling for player and team characteristics, Blacks and Latinos were actually preferred by MLB All-star voters during the 1990s. Initial evidence suggests that over the sample period the bias for Blacks came from voters in the South and Midwest, the bias for Latinos came from voters in the Midwest and West, while there was residual bias for White players in the South.