Ulric B. and Evelyn L. Bray Seminar

There have been growing calls for increased emphasis on ethics education following recent business scandals and economic upheavals. Although numerous studies have examined whether economics produces more self-interested individuals, there has been little research on the possible effects of economic ethics, i.e., ethics education in economics. This paper reports the results of three studies that explore different types of ethics education and different types of outcomes. Study 1 examines the possible effects on fairness views of exposure in a mandatory philosophy class to five weeks of readings and lectures on a subject matter that concerns economics and ethics, viz., distributive justice. In Study 2, students in economics classes hear lectures on professional ethics and then participate in classroom economics experiments that measure generosity and cooperation. Study 3 examines whether current distributive and reciprocal preferences observed in a laboratory economics experiment are correlated with current or past volunteering activities outside the laboratory. The studies find both effects and non-effects depending on the method, whereby the effects vary qualitatively with the method used. These findings tentatively suggest that economic ethics might influence behavior but that both the existence and type of effect is sensitive to the method employed.