Reading the paper affects your vote
(Wesley Bedrosian for the Boston Globe)
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POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS INTERACT with voters mostly through the media, and the question of whether the media is biased is more or less constantly being debated. Researchers decided to test whether newspaper coverage affects the politics of its readers. They offered households in a remote suburb of Washington, D.C., free 10-week subscriptions to either the more-liberal
Gerber, A. et al., "Does The Media Matter? A Field Experiment Measuring the Effect of Newspapers on Voting Behavior and Political Opinions," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics (forthcoming).
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Why 'gay genes' survive
AN OPEN QUESTION in human evolution is why homosexuality has persisted in the population if homosexuals are less likely to reproduce. Using data from a survey of thousands of Australian twins, a team of researchers found evidence that genes are at least partly responsible for creating an atypical gender identity, which is associated with homosexuality but is also associated with enhanced reproductive success in heterosexuals. In other words, although feminine males and masculine females were more likely to be homosexual, those who were heterosexual tended to have more opposite-sex partners. Likewise, a heterosexual with a non-heterosexual twin tended to have more opposite-sex partners than a heterosexual with a heterosexual twin; this was especially true for women. This suggests that some of the same factors behind homosexuality are also behind mating success.
Zietsch, B. et al., "Genetic Factors Predisposing to Homosexuality May Increase Mating Success in Heterosexuals," Evolution and Human Behavior (forthcoming).
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A black face means a higher interest rate
IN THE OLD days, many banks simply refused to do business in minority neighborhoods, a practice known as "redlining." Today, banks must limit their vetting to financial data. However, a new form of online lending allows regular people to lend to borrowers who, while anonymous in name, are allowed to include photos and other non-financial information in their loan applications. Two economists analyzed all loan applications listed during a one-year period on the website Prosper.com. Listings with a picture of a black person (or no picture at all) were 30 percent less likely to get funded than a white listing with similar financial information, and, if funded, were subject to a slightly higher interest rate. (However, the website's black borrowers were 36 percent more likely to default than the site's white borrowers with similar financial information.) Some discrimination was also found against the elderly, the overweight, and the unattractive, but members of the military and women (especially single women) were advantaged. Members of the military were 49 percent more likely than non-military borrowers to default.
Pope, D. and Sydnor, J., "What's in a Picture? Evidence of Discrimination from Prosper.com," University of Pennsylvania (August 2008).
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Why 'sleep on it' really works
IT'S OFTEN SAID that you should "sleep on it" before making a fateful decision. While getting rest may be important, two psychologists found that people can also improve their judgment simply by taking a fresh look at the same question much later. Four hundred and twenty-eight people were asked to estimate real-world quantities, and then re-estimate these quantities - either immediately, or three weeks later. The statistical value of an immediate second estimate was about one-tenth of what you would gain from asking a second person, but, after a three week wait, the gain of a second estimate went up to one-third.
Vul, E. and Pashler, H., "Measuring the Crowd Within: Probabilistic Representations within Individuals," Psychological Science (July 2008).
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Superstar salaries: a market failure?
HOW SUPER ARE the superstars? This is more than just a rhetorical question. Superstars earn hundreds of times more per hour than the average person, so if we truly live in a meritocracy, then superstars must be far more valuable than almost everyone else. However, one economist says there is good reason to think that superstars are not so super. In industries where on-the-job performance is the only reliable measure of talent and where one's performance is publicly known, there will be too little investment in new talent and too many people working in the industry who shouldn't be. This is because employers are more reluctant to experiment with new talent and instead engage in bidding wars for the incumbent talent pool, especially where performance is publicly known, as with entertainers and CEOs.
Tervi^, M., "Superstars and Mediocrities: Market Failure in the Discovery of Talent," Review of Economic Studies (forthcoming).
Kevin Lewis is an Ideas columnist. He can be reached at kevin.lewis.ideas@gmail.com.
