The Education Gambit: Chess, Cognitive Skills, and a Natural Experiment in Armenia

Talk by Mikayel Tovmasyan (Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt) as part of the Research Seminar Series of the IOS Economics Department.

This paper examines whether a nationwide policy mandating chess instruction in Armenian elementary schools since 2011 enhances students’ cognitive skills and academic performance. Using a Triple Differences identification strategy and student-level data from the Kangaroo International Math Competition (2009–2019), I compare cohorts exposed to early chess training with those who were not. The medium-run main effect, measured three years after the last chess instruction in grade 4, is positive and statistically significant while the direction of violation of the parallel trend's assumption points to the underestimation of the positive effect. The DDD estimate implies that the 7th-grade treated cohort scored 0.155 standard deviations higher relative to the 9–10 grade placebo comparison, corresponding to about 2.4 additional Kangaroo points or 7 percent of the median contest score. Heterogeneity estimates are generally positive across observable subgroups, but the strongest common-FE estimates appear for town/urban students, Yerevan students, and public-school students. The results align with mixed evidence on the far-transfer benefits of cognitively demanding activities. These findings provide practical insights for policymakers considering the inclusion of chess in school curricula, in terms of its cognitive impact and cost-effectiveness.

Online participants please register by email at: negi@ios-regensburg.de