Political Economists are Neither Selfish nor Indoctrinated

Bruno Frey and Stephan Meier

No 69, IEW - Working Papers from Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich

Abstract: Most professional economists believe that economist in general are more selfish than other persons and that this greater selfishness is due to economic education. In this paper we offer empirical evidence against this widely held belief. Using a unique data set about giving behaviour to two social funds at the University of Zurich, it is shown that economic training does not make people act more selfish. However, the 'natural experiment' supports the hypothesis that the different behaviour of economist can be explained by a selection effect.

Keywords: Economists; Public Good; Giving Behaviour (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 A20 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Working Paper: Political Economists are Neither Selfish Nor Indoctrinated (2001)
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