Does Ethics Training Neutralize the Incentives of the Prisoner's Dilemma? Evidence from a Classroom Experiment

Harvey James and Jeffrey Cohen

General Economics and Teaching from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Teaching economics has been shown to encourage students to defect in a prisoner's dilemma game. However, can ethics training reverse that effect and promote cooperation? We conducted an experiment to answer this question. We found that students who had the ethics module had higher rates of cooperation than students without the ethics module, even after controlling for communication and other factors expected to affect cooperation. We conclude that the teaching of ethics can mitigate the possible adverse incentives of the prisoner's dilemma, and, by implication, the adverse effects of economics and business training.

Keywords: Prisoner's dilemma game; experimental game theory; ethics; economics education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A20 C72 C91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 17 pages
Date: 2002-02-04, Revised 2003-03-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe and nep-pke
Note: Type of Document - Microsoft Word; prepared on IBM PC; to print on HP; pages: 17; figures: none
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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