Economists are born and raised, not made

Abel François, Laurent Weill and Nicolas Eber

Working Papers of LaRGE Research Center from Laboratoire de Recherche en Gestion et Economie (LaRGE), Université de Strasbourg

Abstract: What makes economics students different? There is a long-lasting debate on this issue discussing the selection process and the indoctrination effect of economics program. We use the unique framework of the French higher education system in which students could freely choose their discipline to provide new evidence on this question. We conduct a survey on a large group of students from one of the largest French universities at the very beginning of their program before any potential indoctrination. We confirm the self-selection effect: students self-selecting in economics have more economic-oriented attitudes and values than other students. Besides, they also prefer the market price solution to a scarce resource allocation problem. We also find evidence of a parental heritage mediation on the relationship between the program and the students’ values and, to a less extent, a student working experience mediation. Finally, we do not find clear evidence for indoctrination related to economic teaching, but we detect a general indoctrination towards more government intervention in all undergraduate programs.

Keywords: economists; economics education; values; selection; cultural transmission. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A12 A13 A20 D10 I20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lar:wpaper:2022-07

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