ABSTRACT
This chapter critically reviews the economic research on female intercollegiate athletes and women's athletics. Although economic research in this area has increased in recent years, in part due to the events mentioned above, a number of important research questions remain unanswered and a number of promising areas for economic research still remain unexamined. Intercollegiate athletics is an interesting setting for comparative studies of many types of economic behavior. A large number of colleges and universities sponsor both men's and women's teams in identical or closely related sports. Basketball, soccer, swimming, golf, lacrosse, track and field, and hockey fall into the former category; men's baseball and women's softball fall into the latter. Economists have studied competitive balance, managerial or coaching efficiency, and the gender gap in athletic performance in many other settings. Most of the important methodological issues related to coaching efficiency and competitive balance have been resolved, paving the way for extensions of this research to previously unexamined sports.
