恶人谷

In a recent New Yorker, John Cassidy spends time with a number of influential economists at the University of Chicago, home to the Chicago School and its emphasis on the productive efficiency of free markets. Obviously, the financial maelstrom of the last few years has led many to question this premise, at least in its strongest form. How have these economists reacted? If you read my recent article in Wired on the psychology of failure, you probably aren't too surprised to learn that Cassidy finds several eminent Chicago economists who insist that the market failure wasn't actually a failure, or that even if there was a failure then it didn't involve the markets. In other words, their assumption remains intact - it's the evidence that's so flawed.

Well a meta-analysis to be published in the journal Psychological Bulletin can be added to the pile of evidence that finds no significant gender difference in mathematical ability.

Researchers analyzed results from two math tests that assessed nearly half a million boys and girls between the ages of 14 to 16, from 69 countries. They tested algebra, geometry, data analysis and number concepts. The study’s lead author, Villanova University psychology professor Nicole Else-Quest found “…that on average across all the nations the gender difference was negligible.”

But she and her colleagues did notice an interesting pattern, “When you look at the variability across nations you see it varies a great deal. There are some nations where girls do better than boys. There are some nations boys do better than girls.”

Countries that had larger gender gaps favoring boys included Tunisia and Korea. And those favoring girls were Jordan and Bahrain.

But most countries showed no gender gap including the United States, Sweden, Germany.