Market Participation and Moral Decision-Making: Experimental Evidence from Greenland

Gustav Agneman and Esther Chevrot-Bianco

The Economic Journal, 2023, vol. 133, issue 650, 537-581

Abstract: The relationship between market participation and moral values is the object of a long-lasting debate in economics, yet field evidence is mainly based on cross-cultural studies. We conduct rule-breaking experiments in 13 villages across Greenland (N = 543), where stark contrasts in market participation within villages allow us to examine the relationship between market participation and moral decision-making, holding village-level factors constant. First, we document a robust positive association between market participation and moral behaviour towards anonymous others. Second, market-integrated participants display universalism in moral decision-making, whereas non-market participants make more moral decisions towards co-villagers. A battery of robustness tests confirms that the behavioural differences between market and non-market participants are not driven by socioeconomic variables, childhood background, cultural identities, kinship structure, global connectedness and exposure to religious and political institutions.

Date: 2023
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