Studying Competition And Gender Through Chess

Data Skeptic

b'## Studying Competition and Gender Through Chess\r\n\r\nINTRO VOICE-OVER: Data Skeptic features interviews with experts on topics related to data science, all through the eye of scientific skepticism.\r\n\r\nHOST: Peter Backus has a PhD in Economics and is currently a Lecturer in Economics at the University of Manchester and a Fellow at The Institut d\'Economica, de Barcelona. Peter is also a former guest of the show from back in 2014 when we discussed the economics of charitable giving and other interesting economic topics. His research has covered topics including the economics of charities, the private provisioning of public goods and the study of gender differences in competition. His recent work has explored gender differences in competition, specifically in chess. And it\'s that topic that I have invited him here to discuss today. \r\n\r\nSo, Peter welcome back to Data Skeptic.\r\n\r\nPETER: Thanks for having me back Kyle.\r\n\r\nHOST: Yeah this is a really interesting paper. \r\n\r\nI know we live in an age where many people don\'t read past the headline. I\'d be a bit uncomfortable myself speaking about a result which said, "women are intrinsically not as good at chess compared to men." Although, I don\'t think that\'s the interpretation anyone would get if they actually read your paper, but to perhaps quell interpretations like that before they start, could you give me a high level summary of your results and maybe touch on what one should or shouldn\'t infer from them?\r\n\r\nPETER: Sure, just to give a little background on the paper, what we want to contribute to this literature on gender and competition - where some very big name economists have worked - is to try to understand how many women respond differently to competitive environments, which is important for all sorts of reasons, primarily labor market outcomes. \r\n\r\nThe example that I usually gave is: \r\nimagine the boss comes down and there are male and female employees and he says, "okay whoever has the most number of sales at the end of

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