When expert advice fails to reduce the productivity gap: Experimental evidence from chess players

Elias Bouacida, Renaud Foucart and Maya Jalloul

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2025, vol. 236, issue C

Abstract: We study the impact of external advice on the relative performance of chess players. We asked players in chess tournaments to evaluate positions in past games and allowed them to revise their evaluation after observing the answers of a higher or a lower-ability adviser. Although high-quality advice has the potential to serve as a “great equalizer,” reducing the difference between higher- and lower-ability players, it did not happen in our experiment. One reason is that lower-ability players tend to pay a higher premium by sticking to their initial evaluation rather than following high-quality advice.

Keywords: Decreasing differences; Productivity gap; Expert; Advice; Chess; Control (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C78 C91 C93 D91 J24 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:236:y:2025:i:c:s0167268125002434

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107124

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