Personnel Economics Workshop (PEW)

Notice

Next Workshop

April 27 (Sat.), 2024  → May 11 (Sat.), 2024

1st Session

This study examines the impact of the ICT and AI revolutions on the productivity of professional Japanese Chess (Shogi) players, using data from the last 40 years of the Grandmaster League. The ICT revolution, marked by the introduction of game databases, and the AI revolution, characterized by the development of advanced AI engines, significantly influenced professionals across different age groups. We employed two types of performance measures in this study. The first is a relative measure, analyzing annual rankings in the Grandmaster League, and the second is an absolute measure, evaluating a player's move with a Japanese chess AI engine. Our findings indicate that younger players showed improvements in both relative and absolute performance due to these technological advancements. Additionally, older players have demonstrated notable improvements in absolute performance following the AI revolution. These findings highlight the importance of adaptability and continuous learning in response to technological advancements.

2nd Session

It is recently observed that holistic admission has been additionally introduced or expanded in countries where written exam-based admission has traditionally been dominant. This additional introduction might help the university diversify the student body and admit well-qualified students who were overlooked in written exam-based admission. However, since applicants in many cases can choose which types of admissions to take and holistic admission is conducted prior to written exam-based admission, some students admitted through holistic admission would be admitted to the same university through written exam-based admission even without the holistic admission. Furthermore, if the number to be admitted to the university is determined in advance, the university could lose some students due to the introduction of holistic admission because the slot for written exam-based admission is reduced. Hence, affected students, those admitted and those not admitted because of holistic admission, should be compared. This paper exploits administrative data from a middle-ranked university in Japan and examines the effects of holistic admission on admitted student quality and diversity. The university’s admission system, in which applicants to their holistic admission need to decide to apply to their written exam-based admission before knowing the result of the holistic admission, helps me to predict who would have been admitted through the written exam-based admission in the absence of the holistic admission. I supplementarily analyze noncognitive abilities and social economic status using survey data. I found that the holistic admission enabled the university to admit students who would not have been admitted solely through the written exam-based admission. Holistic admissions can be a tool for diversifying the student body at university, including an increase in female students’ enrollment, without deteriorating student quality much. Nonetheless, a substantial portion of students admitted through holistic admission would have been admitted through written exam-based admission without the holistic admission.

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Upcoming Workshops


June 22 (Sat.), 2024

1st Session

2nd Session 


July 27 (Sat.), 2024

1st Session

2nd Session