Pointing Fingers: Why People Hold Corporations Responsible

Martin Leroch

Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftspolitik, 2009, vol. 58, issue 3, 396-410

Abstract: Social incentives, e. g. holding others responsible, are a major but in economics rarely discussed element of norm enforcement. I argue they are intimately tied to sentiments towards the assumed causers of a specific outcome. If, in case of joint actions, individual causers are not identifiable, a group as a whole may be held responsible. Those collective entities serve as ‘scapegoat’ and thus relieve those involved from their empathetic distress. Consequently, the ascription of responsibility is easily flawed and not reliable. Policy recommendations calling on the responsibility of the actors should thus be dispensed with.

Date: 2009
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DOI: 10.1515/zfwp-2009-0306

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