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The Effect of Sport in Online Dating: Evidence from Causal Machine Learning

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  • Boller, Daniel
  • Lechner, Michael
  • Okasa, Gabriel

Abstract

Online dating emerged as a key platform for human mating. Previous research focused on socio-demographic characteristics to explain human mating in online dating environments, neglecting the commonly recognized relevance of sport. This research investigates the effect of sport activity on human mating by exploiting a unique data set from an online dating platform. Thereby, we leverage recent advances in the causal machine learning literature to estimate the causal effect of sport frequency on the contact chances. We find that for male users, doing sport on a weekly basis increases the probability to receive a first message from a woman by 50%, relatively to not doing sport at all. For female users, we do not find evidence for such an effect. In addition, for male users the effect increases with higher income.

Suggested Citation

  • Boller, Daniel & Lechner, Michael & Okasa, Gabriel, 2021. "The Effect of Sport in Online Dating: Evidence from Causal Machine Learning," Economics Working Paper Series 2104, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:usg:econwp:2021:04
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Michael Lechner & Jana Mareckova, 2024. "Comprehensive Causal Machine Learning," Papers 2405.10198, arXiv.org.
    2. Michael Lechner & Jana Mareckova, 2022. "Modified Causal Forest," Papers 2209.03744, arXiv.org.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Online dating; sports economics; big data; causal machine learning; effect heterogeneity; Modified Causal Forest;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • Z29 - Other Special Topics - - Sports Economics - - - Other
    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models
    • C45 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Neural Networks and Related Topics

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