|
|
Article: Honesty versus cooperation: a reinterpretation of the moral behavior of economics students.
- Article from:
- The American Journal of Economics and Sociology
- Article date:
- October 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Economics Students are Less Cooperative
IN THEIR PIONEERING STUDY, Gerald Marwell and Ruth Ames found that graduate students in economics are much more likely to free ride than others in situations where private contributions to public goods are asked for (Marwell and Ames 1981). They designed an experiment where subjects were given some initial endowment of money that they were to allocate between two accounts, the "public" and the "private." Money deposited in the subject's private account was returned to the subject dollar-for-dollar at the end of the experiment. Money deposited in the public account was pooled, multiplied by a factor greater than unity, and ...