统计与管理学院2016年学术报告第18期
【主 题】Virtual World VS Real World: Economic Analysis Using Online Computer Game Data
【报告人】 范青亮
厦门大学王亚南经济研究院
【时 间】 2016年5月20日（星期五）15:00－16:00
【地 点】 上海财经大学统计与管理学院大楼1208室
【摘 要】The growing popularity of cyber games caught our attention on the economic analysis of the cyber game participation. We get a unique online computer game data which recorded all online behaviors of gamers. We analyze the data in two papers. In the first paper, we examine the link between the virtual world attributes and real world variables in aggregate level. Specifically, we employ three cyber game attributes: playtime, in-game level and achievement (in terms of accomplished 'missions') as the measurements of cyber games participation. We use real world variables including gross regional product per capita, household dispensable income, Internet penetration rate, unemployment rate, the number of movie theaters per capita etc., to explore the variation of cyber game participation. Using the game data from a very popular cyber game in China and prefecture-level data in 2011, our empirical results show that the income is negatively associated with cyber game participation, while other economic variables and environmental variables have less impact on the higher quantiles of participation but more so on the lower quantiles. The substitution effect of other leisure activities are strongly negative to the participation of cyber games. Moreover, we also study the effects of environmental variables such as rainfall, air pollution etc. on cyber games participation. The second paper provides the first empirical evidence for short-run impacts of outdoor temperature on human performance in China. We provide a new measurement of human performance using gamers' productivity in a popular computer-based online game. We find that low temperature leads to longer game time and lower gamer performance. Each degree decrease in temperature below 5C leads to a 2% decrease in gamers' productivity. Temperature impacts show cross-player and temporal heterogeneity. We also find evidences of negative impacts on gamers' productivity from high temperature above 21C. Our results draw attention to potential damages of extreme temperature on human performance.
【邀请人】 夏宁宁
