The causal impact of economics education on decision-making: Evidence from a natural experiment in China

Binkai Chen, Wei Lin and Ao Wang

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2021, vol. 188, issue C, 1124-1143

Abstract: We investigate the causal impact of collegiate economics courses on students’ decision-making. By exploiting a Chinese college-admission system that quasi-randomly assigns students to economics/business majors given students’ preferences and the College Entrance Exam’s cutoff scores for economics/business majors, we are able to isolate the treatment effects of an economics education on students’ responses to a decision-making survey. Specifically, we compare the survey responses of students who narrowly meet the cutoffs for the economics/business majors to those who do not and find that students educated in economics/business courses are more likely to be risk neutral and less prone to common biases in probabilistic beliefs. While students in economics/business majors do not show significant changes in social preferences, they appear more inclined to believe that others behave selfishly.

Keywords: Decision-making; College majors; Preferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 A22 D81 I21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:188:y:2021:i:c:p:1124-1143

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.06.018

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