Poulami Ghosh developed a love of computer programming at the end of high school. “It started in 11th grade. I was interested in computer programming. I started coding in C++ and then, from there, I went on to get an undergraduate degree in economics.” In college, Ghosh had her first brush with financial services and econometrics.

Pressure to deliver quarterly returns can drive managerial myopia. Recent studies link the short-termism to Wall Street culture and dynamics. But a deeper analysis tells a different story.

Wall Street traders play for higher stakes than Monopoly rivals collecting plastic houses and fake money. But finance professor Albert “Pete” Kyle, author of landmark research on market microstructure, sees both activities as examples of games. As a child growing up in Memphis, Tenn., Kyle enjoyed strategy games like checkers, chess, poker and bridge — especially when winning required a degree of speculation. He also enjoyed market simulations like Monopoly.