A gambit is a reminder of life’s trade-offs. In the game of chess, a player can sacrifice pieces early in the game to gain a positional advantage. Should you do it? An aggressive player would answer it’s worth it, because the momentum gives players an edge. A conservative player would disagree, because being down on material is something to avoid. This may seem like a discussion, but it’s not. Both are correct. Their statements are both true and useless. They are correct because the effects are well identified. But it’s useless because the matter at hand is a trade-off. It demands a further investigation into the magnitude of each effect, to determine if, on average, a gambit is worth it. Every policy, every action, has negative and positive effects on someone.
Alongside my research, I like to show how far simple averages can go. On this blog, I use basic descriptive statistics to look at questions in education, housing, and politics, and some of these analyses have been picked up by the media.