Market Design and Moral Behavior

Michael Kirchler, Jürgen Huber, Matthias Stefan () and Matthias Sutter
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Michael Kirchler: Department of Banking and Finance, University of Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck Austria; and Department of Economics, Centre for Finance, University of Gothenburg, 40530 Gothenburg, Sweden
Jürgen Huber: Department of Banking and Finance, University of Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
Matthias Stefan: Department of Banking and Finance, University of Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria

Management Science, 2016, vol. 62, issue 9, 2615-2625

Abstract: In an experiment with 739 subjects, we study whether and how different interventions might have an influence on the degree of moral behavior when subjects make decisions that can generate negative externalities on uninvolved parties. Particularly, subjects can either take money for themselves or donate it to UNICEF for measles vaccines. By considering two fairly different institutional regimes—one with individual decision making, one with a double-auction market—we expose the different interventions to a kind of robustness check. We find that the threat of monetary punishment promotes moral behavior in both regimes. Getting subjects more involved with the traded good has no effect, though, in both regimes. Only the removal of anonymity, thus making subjects identifiable, has different effects across regimes, which we explain by different perceptions of responsibility. This paper was accepted by Uri Gneezy, behavioral economics .

Keywords: morals; market design; experiment; behavioral economics; punishment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (56)

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2015.2246 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Market Design and Moral Behavior (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:62:y:2016:i:9:p:2615-2625

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