Senior Project Presentations

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Senior Project Presentations
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Time Matters

• Presentation Time Limit -- 7 minutes
• Going over will effect your grade!
• Not counting questions
• Determine What Points Are Worth Making
• (Do This Before Making PP Slides)

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Overview of Slide Types

• Defining the Topic/Problem
• Build interest in economic content
• Background
• Key Findings
• Questions/Problems/Issues

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From Written Report to PowerPoint

• How Many Slides?
• _at_ x minutes per slide
• Remember, slides should augment, not replace,
  oral presentation
• Emphasis
• Illustration (tables/graphs)
• Clarification

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Example Positional Segregation
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Positional Segregation in Sports

• Discrimination or Comparative Advantage

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Positional Segregation The Issue

• NFL in late 1990s white-black QB ratio 31 while
  cornerback ratio 160
• MLB in 1980s blacks comprise 7 of pitchers but
  70 of outfielders
• Does figures such as these reflect discrimination
  or some underlying competitive advantage?

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Possible Economic Explanations

• Employer-Manager, Employee, or Fan bias (Scully
  1974 Curtis and Loy 1978 Yetman 1987)
• Different Training opportunities (Medoff 1986)
• Non-discrimination Explanations?
• Differences in Underlying Athletic Abilities
• Athletic Endowment

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Distribution of Athletic Endowments

• At Individual Level prima facie evidence
• At Aggregate Levels Marked by Geographic Areas
  or racial/ethnic Groups?
• Anecdote/Science of Nepalese Sherpas
• Mixed Evidence from Exercise Science
• Related Evidence in Medical Problems

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Key Caveats

• Not assuming a correlation between athletic
  skill and mental capacity.
• Not limited to race-based groupings -- broader
  and narrower than race alone

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Evidence

• Does Track Field Performance Differ by
  Ancestral Region?
• Data for top 20 performing athletes in variety of
  events
• Contingency Table Analysis
• Comparisons of Regional Percentages
• Logistic Regression
• Controlling for differences in population and
  income

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Contingency Table
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Logistic Regression
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Evaluating Results

• What is the basis of this geographic dependence?
  
• Managerial/Employee/Customer Bias?
• Training?
• Comparative Advantage?
• How Big of a Difference Might Comparative
  Advantage Make?
• Small differences distributional effects, see
  Martel, et al, American Psychologist (1996)