McKinsey, Women Matter 2013: Since 2007, our Women Matter research has been making the business case for increasing the number of women in senior managment roles.
[...]
The truth is, putting initiatives in place does not guarantee they will be well executed.
Deciding that your hiring manager suffer under a bias that makes them discount the expertise of women alone isn't enough to hire more capable women.
By the way, do you agree with me that it's pretty obvious just from simple observation that female workers are less willing than men to take on work which is dirty, dangerous, risky or demanding, and more likely to absent themselves from work or even quit over child care issues?
You confuse two issues: (1) Do people really believe that women are underpaid. (2) Are women underpaid.
In this discussion I argue for (1) and in general I'm agnostic about (2).
McKinsey, Women Matter 2013: Since 2007, our Women Matter research has been making the business case for increasing the number of women in senior managment roles. [...] The truth is, putting initiatives in place does not guarantee they will be well executed.
I don't see anything in that quote which makes the "save money by hiring women" argument. Indeed, if that were the argument, it would not be limited to "senior management roles." So it seems that the McKinsey study does not contradict my position.
Incidentally, if you had to bet...
LW readers have unusual views on many subjects. Efficient Market Hypothesis notwithstanding, many of these are probably alien to most people in finance. So it's plausible they might have implications that are not yet fully integrated into current asset prices. And if you rightfully believe something that most people do not believe, you should be able to make money off that.
Here's an example for a different group. Feminists believe that women are paid less than men for no good economic reason. If this is the case, feminists should invest in companies that hire many women, and short those which hire few women, to take advantage of the cheaper labour costs. And I can think of examples for groups like Socialists, Neoreactionaries, etc. - cases where their positive beliefs have strong implications for economic predictions. But I struggle to think of such ones for LessWrong, which is why I am asking you. Can you think of any unusual LW-type beliefs that have strong economic implications (say over the next 1-3 years)?
Wei Dai has previously commented on a similar phenomena, but I'm interested in a wider class of phenomena.