Moral Judgments in Social Dilemmas: How Bad is Free Riding?

Robin Cubitt, Michalis Drouvelis, Simon Gaechter and Ruslan Kabalin
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Simon Gächter

No 3230, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: In the last thirty years, economists and other social scientists have investigated people’s normative views on distributive justice. Here we study people’s normative views in social dilemmas, which underlie many situations of economic and social significance. Using insights from moral philosophy and psychology we provide an analysis of the morality of free riding. We use experimental survey methods to investigate people’s moral judgments empirically. We vary others’ contributions, the framing (“give-some” vs. “take-some”) and whether contributions are simultaneous or sequential. We find that moral judgments of a free rider depend strongly on others’ behaviour; and that failing to give is condemned more strongly than withdrawing all support.

Keywords: moral judgments; moral psychology; framing effects; public goods experiments; free riding (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C90 D63 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Moral judgments in social dilemmas: How bad is free riding? (2011)
Journal Article: Moral judgments in social dilemmas: How bad is free riding? (2011)
Working Paper: Moral Judgments in Social Dilemmas: How Bad is Free Riding? (2010)
Working Paper: Moral Judgments in Social Dilemmas: How Bad is Free Riding? (2009)
Working Paper: Moral Judgments in Social Dilemmas: How Bad is Free Riding?
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_3230

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