The National Basketball Association (NBA) has a fixed salary schedule that allows us to examine this labor market to understand the incentives for players to enter the draft. Previous studies have focused on labor as a choice from the team’s perspective. Early entry into the NBA draft is...

In an influential article, “Unraveling in Matching Markets,"Li and Rosen (1998) note that the first 7 picks, and 17 among 29 first-round selections, of the 1997 National Basketball Association (NBA) draft were not college seniors. By 2004, the first pick was a high school senior, and 25 of...