Incorporating Conditional Morality into Economic Decisions

David Masclet () and David Dickinson

No 12782, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We present a framework that incorporates both moral motivations and fairness considerations into utility. The main idea is that individuals face a preference trade-off between their material individual interest and their desire to follow moral norms. In our model, we assume that moral motivation is conditional and may be influenced by others' actions. Specifically, in our framework moral obligation is a combination of two main components: an autonomous component and a social influence component that captures the influence of others. Our framework is able to explain many stylized results in the literature and to improve theories of economic behavior.

Keywords: fairness; ethical decision making; behavioral economics; moral motivation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B3 D6 D9 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2019-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-exp, nep-hpe and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published - published online in: Theory and Decision , 28 August 2024

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Related works:
Journal Article: Incorporating conditional morality into economic decisions (2025)
Working Paper: Incorporating conditional morality into economic decisions (2024)
Working Paper: Incorporating Conditional Morality into Economic Decisions (2024)
Working Paper: Incorporating Conditional Morality into Economic Decisions (2019)
Working Paper: Incorporating Conditional Morality into Economic Decisions (2019)
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