Antonovics, Kate, Peter Arcidiacono, and Randall Walsh. 2005. “Games and Discrimination: Lessons From The Weakest Link.” Journal of Human Resources 40(4): 918-947.

We use data from the television game show, The Weakest Link, to determine whether contestants discriminate on the basis of race and gender and, if so, which theory of discrimination best explains their behavior. Our results suggest no evidence of discriminatory voting patterns by males against females or by whites against blacks. In contrast, we find that in the early rounds of the game women appear to discriminate against men. We test three theories for the voting behavior of women: preference-based discrimination, statistical discrimination, and strategic discrimination. We find only preference based discrimination to be consistent with the observed voting patterns.

Kate Antonovics is an assistant professor of economics at the University of California, San Diego. Peter Arcidiacono is an assistant professor of economics at Duke University. Randall Walsh is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The authors thank Vince Crawford, Nora Gordon, Roger Gordon, Tom Nechyba, Joel Watson, and seminar participants at the University of Colorado, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Pennsylvania for their helpful comments and advice concerning this paper. The authors also thank Patrick Dickinson and Pamela Maine for research assistance. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning May 2006 through April 2009 from Peter Arcidiacono, Department of Economics, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708-0097, email: psarcidi@econ.duke.edu.