Narrow Paths Out of Poverty and Educational Demand: Evidence from Dominican Baseball

Brian Marein and Craig Palsson

Economic Development and Cultural Change, 2026, vol. 74, issue 2, 747 - 775

Abstract: Do narrow, or improbable, paths out of poverty, such as those in sports and entertainment, reduce the demand for schooling? We study the effect of professional baseball on educational attainment in the Dominican Republic, where all Major League Baseball (MLB) teams recruit teenage boys. We exploit plausibly exogenous variation in exposure to MLB’s sudden entry into the Dominican Republic on the basis of birthplace (reflecting preexisting local baseball cultures) and gender (because girls are not recruited for baseball). We find that baseball has no measurable effect on school attendance, in contrast to popular perception.

Date: 2026
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