Market Design and Moral Behavior

Michael Kirchler, Jürgen Huber, Matthias Stefan () and Matthias Sutter
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Matthias Stefan: University of Innsbruck

No 8973, IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER

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.

Keywords: morals; market design; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 C92 D47 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 71 pages
Date: 2015-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Published - published in: Management Science, 2016, 62, 2615-2625

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Journal Article: Market Design and Moral Behavior (2016)
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