Essays on economic behavior, gender and strategic learning

This doctoral thesis consists of four papers. Strategic behavior across gender: A comparison of female and male expert chess players analyzes gender differences in risk behavior in chess. We use a panel data set with 1.4 million games. Most notably, the data contains an objective measure of individual playing skill. We find that women are more risk averse and that men choose riskier strategies when playing against female opponents even though this reduces their winning probability. Gender differences in time preference and inconsistency among expert chess players presents findings on gender differences in time preference and inconsistency in chess. Impatience is estimated by measuring preferences for game durations while inconsistency by exploiting the 40 th move time control. The results reveal that men are more impatient while women are more time inconsistent. Moreover, the difference in impatience increases with expertise while the difference in inconsistency decreases. Beauty queens and battling knights: Risk taking and attractiveness in chess explores the relationship between attractiveness and risk taking in chess. We examine whether people use riskier strategies when playing with attractive opponents and whether this affects performance. Our results suggest that male, but not female, chess players choose significantly riskier strategies when playing against an attractive female opponent, although this does not improve their performance. Strategic Learning in Repeated Chess Games , examines if chess players in repeated games with the same opponent, learn about the opponent’s type and adapt future strategies accordingly. It also shows how matching background characteristics affect the choice of strategy. The findings show that chess players learn about the opponent’s type. Players with similar background characteristics coordinate better than players of different gender or nationality but this difference decreases as the players update their beliefs.