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Comparing chatbots to psychometric tests in hiring: reduced social desirability bias, but lower predictive validity
No full textThis paper explores the efficacy of AI-driven chatbots in accurately inferring personality traits compared to traditional psychometric tests within a real-world professional hiring context. The study is driven by the increasing integration of AI tools in recruitment processes, which necessitates a deeper understanding of their reliability and validity. Using a quasi-experimental design with propensity score matching, we analysed data from 159 candidates and other professionals from Serbian and Montenegrin regions who completed both traditional psychometric assessments and AI-based personality evaluations based on the Big Five Personality model. A novel one-question-per-facet approach was employed in the chatbot assessments with a goal of enabling more granular analysis of the chatbot’s psychometric properties. The findings indicate that the chatbot demonstrated good structural, substantive, and convergent validity for certain traits, particularly Extraversion and Conscientiousness, but not for Neuroticism, Agreeableness, and Openness. While robust regression confirmed that AI-inferred scores are less susceptible to social desirability bias than traditional tests, they did not significantly predict real-world outcomes, indicating issues with external validity, particularly predictive validity. The results suggest that AI-driven chatbots show promise for identifying certain personality traits and demonstrate resistance to social desirability bias. This paper contributes to the emerging field of AI and psychometrics by offering insights into the potential and limitations of AI tools in professional selection, while developing an approach for refining psychometric properties of AI-driven assessments
What does the UK public really think about aid? From someone who knows.
No full textDavid Hudson, an academic with years of research on public opinion on aid, responds to a UK Government Minister’s recent comments about public support (or in the minister’s view, the lack of it)
Breaking the cycle of harm in adolescent relationships
No full textThe Netflix series Adolescence portrayed the gruesome reality of teenage violence, and the numerous and complex causes behind it. Polina Obolenskaya, Annie Bunce and Ruth Weir draw on their research into adolescent toxic relationships to highlight the sources of such behaviour, and argue that schools can play an important role in prevention and early identification of harmful relationships between peers
The Independent Sentencing Review’s reforms are in the right direction
No full textThe Government’s new Independent Sentencing Review aims to reform the way the justice system punishes offenders by moving away from high sentences and towards punishment in the community. Lewis Ross argues that such reforms are in the right direction and in line with academic evidence about the inefficacy of high sentences in reducing crime, but argues that the Government should be cautious around public messaging and distance itself from odd suggestions such as “chemical castration”
How the euro can break from its crisis cycle
No full textEuropean Central Bank intervention has been critical to fighting the multiple crises that have hit the euro over the last two decades. Yet as John H. Cochrane, Luis Garicano and Klaus Masuch explain, the expectation that the ECB will intervene routinely has locked the euro into a crisis cycle that now risks spiralling out of control
The unintended consequences of internationalisation and global rankings
No full textAs UK universities become more dependent on international student fees, Chen-Ta Sung examines the fall-out on social mobility and student wellbein
Towards a development humanities
No full textProfessor David Lewis makes a case for a new field of Development Humanities (DH): the idea of widening the scope of development studies beyond just economics and the other social sciences to engage more with the arts and humanities. He argues that building new interdisciplinary bridges can be useful for research, teaching and practice
Analysing pharmaceutical patents and researching generic drug policies — and revisiting Mexico City
No full textProfessor Ken Shadlen reflects on a recent research trip to Mexico City to study pharmaceutical patent linkage and generic drug regulation, while also revisiting places from his long personal and academic history with the city
Specific egalitarianism? Inequality aversion across domains
No full textAn individual’s inequality aversion (IA) is a central preference parameter that captures the welfare sacrifice from exposure to inequality. However, it is far from trivial how best to elicit IA estimates. Also, little is known about the behavioural determinants of IA and how they differ across domains such as income and health. Using representative surveys from England, this paper elicits comparable estimates of IA in the health and income domains using two alternative elicitation techniques: a direct trade-off and an indirect “imaginary-grandchild” approach that results from the choices between hypothetical lotteries. We make three distinct contributions to the literature. First, we show that IA systematically differs between income and health domains. Average estimates are around 0.8 for health IA and range from 0.8 to 1.5 for income IA. Second, we find that risk aversion and locus of control are central determinants of IA in both income and health domains. Finally, we present evidence suggesting that the distribution and comparison of IA vary depending on the elicitation method employed
Still together, after all: consensual dynamics and the persistence of the growth paradigm among left-wing groups in Italy
No full textWhilst left-wing groups' increasing acceptance of fiscal austerity and anti-inflationary policies is well documented, less attention has been placed on their positions vis-à-vis the pursuit of economic growth, a key pillar of neoliberal ideology, and whether these ideas are affected during critical junctures. This article fills this gap by investigating the following questions: what are the stances of left-wing groups on the pursuit of economic growth, and do such positions persist or change in periods of economic crisis? The research focuses on Italy, a country where left-wing groups have long supported the ‘beyond GDP’ agenda and which was severely affected by the 2011 Eurozone crisis. It finds that left-wing groups see the pursuit of increasing economic growth as a prerequisite for well-being and social justice more generally. This, we argue, suggests that the endurance of the growth paradigm is primarily the result of widespread consensus rather than externally imposed constraints