Is Home-Country Bias Inevitable for Figure-Skating Judges?

In response to allegations of vote-trading and home-country bias among figure-skating judges at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake, the International Skating Union changed judging procedures. Scores are now reported anonymously, and not all the scores are used in the final tally. Unfortunately, as Ray Fisman writes in Slate, the reforms have been less than effective: the Dartmouth economist Eric Zitzewitz finds that anonymity actually results in a higher home-country bias, as it allows judges to hide from a “scrutinizing press.” (HT: Daniel Lippman)[%comments]