Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Our results suggest that investors do not discriminate against female or Asian entrepreneurs when evaluating unsolicited pitch emails... Are they implying that investors do discriminate against non-Asian males? Why write it the other way around.
> Why write it the other way around. Maybe that's how the hypothesis under test was phrased?
It’s interesting that they don’t entertain the possibility that the gap might be caused by something other than bias (at least so far... I’m only 6 pages in). For example:
> Combating bias requires understanding how and where it manifests. Combating bias requires understanding how and where it manifests. In light of the substantial gender imbalance in real-world investments, our results suggest a larger-than-expected bias against female entrepreneurs in other settings.
They seem to be trying to combat bias without having even established that bias is the cause. Indeed, they take the statistically significant discrimination in favor of women in the initial stage as evidence that there must be even more bias against women in later stages.
Given that they haven’t cited any research that would explain why it must be bias and not some other factor, I wonder why the paper is written with this assumption? Perhaps the authors felt it would be poorly received if it so much as kept an open mind about other possible causes? Or maybe this is just common knowledge in the field?