The (In)Elasticity of Moral Ignorance

Marta Serra-Garcia and Nora Szech

No 2019-017, Working Papers from Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group

Abstract: We investigate the elasticity of moral ignorance with respect to monetary incentives and social norm information. We propose that individuals suffer from higher moral costs when rejecting a certain donation, and thus pay for moral ignorance. Consistent with our model, we find significant willingness to pay for ignorance, which we calibrate against morally neutral benchmark treatments. We show that the demand curve for moral ignorance exhibits a sharp kink, of about 50 percent, when moving from small negative to small positive monetary incentives. By contrast, while social norms strongly favor information acquisition, they have little impact on curbing moral ignorance.

Keywords: information avoidance; morality; unethical behavior; social norms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D83 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-hpe and nep-soc
Note: MIP
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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http://humcap.uchicago.edu/RePEc/hka/wpaper/Serra- ... -moral-ignorance.pdf First version, March, 2019 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The (In)Elasticity of Moral Ignorance (2022)
Working Paper: The (In)Elasticity of Moral Ignorance (2019)
Working Paper: The (in)elasticity of moral ignorance (2019)
Working Paper: The (in)elasticity of moral ignorance (2019)
Working Paper: The (in)elasticity of moral ignorance (2018)
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