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Allen Sanderson is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago.  A graduate of Brigham Young University and the University of Chicago, he served as Associate Provost at the University of Chicago from 1984-91, and a Senior Research Scientist at NORC.  He has taught at Princeton University and the College of William and Mary.  In the College he currently teaches a popular two-quarter sequence in introductory economics, a course on the economics of sports, and has organized a team-taught multidisciplinary course entitled “Sport, Society and Science."  He also serves as the faculty adviser for several student organizations on campus and was the Master of Broadview Hall (2000-2001).  In 1998, Sanderson was a recipient of the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. He has run the Chicago Marathon three times.
 

 

Sanderson is an oft-cited authority on sports economics issues, a contributor to op-ed pages on sports and non-sports topics in newspapers around the country, a frequent guest on national and Chicago-area television and radio programs, and a speaker at several local gatherings, including the Science Pub, Chief Procurement Officers Keynote Address (2013), and DePaul University. He writes a bi-monthly column "On Economics" for Chicago Life. His most recent professional journal articles or book chapters are on the economic impact of colleges and universities on their communities; the political economy of Chicago's unsuccessful bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games; and an essay on happiness and economic well-being.  He is currently writing a professional journal article on college athletics.  His latest newspaper and magazine columns have been on taxation, government deficits and debt, transportation, and the economics – and politics – of maintaining a military force.

 

 

 
 

 
 

Sanderson serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Sports Economics and as a referee for the Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Business, Journal of Law and Economics, Journal of Economic Education, Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Human Resources, and the Southern Economic Journal.  For the last 30 years he has written book reviews for Choice. Recent speaking engagements include lectures in Osaka, Japan; the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism; Georgetown and Clemson University; BYU; universities in China and India; the Economic Club of Chicago; and more than 30 University of Chicago alumni clubs across the country and abroad.  His April 2014 Harper lecture at the New York City alumni club is entitled: “Economics, Sports, and the University of Chicago.”  Recent “family weekend” model classes in the College have been:  The Economics of Higher Education; Neither a Borrower Nor a Lender Be?; and Of, By and For the People: The Economic Role of Government in a Market Economy.  In February 2014 he served as the co-chair for a conference in Paris: “Sawiris Symposium on Political Economy in Egypt.”  Other recent professional activities have included serving on an evaluation team for economics at Smith College and decade-long lectures for visiting delegations from China sponsored by the 21st Century Institute.

 

 

Sanderson’s contributions at NORC include research on education, labor markets, and affirmative action on contracts sponsored by the National Science Foundation, TIAA-CREF, the State of Texas, the Educational Testing Service, U.S. News and World Report, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  NORC reports include:  Recent Migration Patterns of Science and Engineering Doctorate Recipients (with Bernard Dugoni), The American Faculty Poll (with Voon Chin Phua and David Herda), Doctorate Recipients from United States Universities:  Annual Summary Report (with Bernard Dugoni, Thomas Hoffer and Sharon Myers), and An Analysis of Worker Drug Use and Workplace Policies and Programs (with John P. Hoffman and Cindy Larison).

 
 

 
 

 

Recent professional publications include research on the economics of sports stadiums (in the Marquette Sports Law Journal and with Robert Baade in Noll and Zimbalist, Sports, Jobs and Taxes and in Hendricks, Advances in the Economics of Sports, Volume 2), free agency in sports (with John Siegfried in Economic Affairs), using sports to teach economics (with John Siegfried in Becker and Watts, Teaching Economics to Undergraduates), home court advantage in the NBA (with Ken Rasinski in Oeconomica), labor markets in professional sports (with Sherwin Rosen in The Economic Journal), dimensions of competitive balance (Journal of Sports Economics), teaching economics (with John Siegfried, Southern Economics Journal),  and on competitive balance (with John Siegfried, Journal of Sports Economics). Recent conference presentations include July 2005 on “The Role of Capital Formation in Professional Sports and Community Development” at Georgetown University; February 2003 on “Baseball Economics” at Vanderbilt University; May 2001 on "The Economics of Baseball" at Washington University; November 2000 on "Baseball's Future" at Smith College; “The Economics of Gambling” for Know Your Chicago, September 2002; and “A Home for the NFL Chicago Bears:  A Case Study in Political Economy and Power” (American Economic Association, January 2003). 

Sanderson’s article on Nobel laureates in economics associated with the University of Chicago, "Wealth of Notions," appeared as the cover story for the December 2001 issue of The University of Chicago Magazine.  His "Market Madness" exercise appeared in the program of the American Economic Association program, the Milken Institute Review, and David Warsh's Economic Principals (all 2010).   His recent research was on the economic impact of colleges and universities on their communities; versions of that work, co-authored with John Siegfried and Peter McHenry, appeared in the Economics of Education Review, Change, and the Milken Institute Review in 2007 and 2008, and Universities and Colleges as Economic Drivers (edited by Lane and Johnstone, 2012).