Not guilty? Another look at the nature and nurture of economics students

Haucap, Justus; Just, Tobias

doi:10.1007/s10657-009-9119-5

Cited by 48 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Several studies (e.g., [18,19]) have focused exclusively on the beliefs about whether markets offer a fair way of allocating goods and services. Other studies (e.g., [20]) have distinguished between attitudes towards the fairness of an allocation system and attitudes towards its functionality or efficiency.…”

Section: General Attitudes Towards Markets and Government In The Economymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Surveys of students of business or economics (e.g., [11,[18][19][20]31]) routinely find that they are more 'pro-market' than other students. However, as noted by some of these researchers, this could simply be a selection effect: students who are more pro-market may be more likely to choose to study these subjects.…”

Section: The Effect Of Studying Economics On Attitudes Towards the Romentioning

confidence: 99%

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Learning Economics and Attitudes to Market Solutions to Environmental Problems

2017

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Climate change challenges governments to reduce emissions, and to gain support for such actions from their citizens. This can be in the form of taxation or legislation, or other forms of government interventions. In previous research, several instruments have been developed to capture attitudes towards the roles of markets and governments in the economy. Some of these instruments have assumed that respondents will have the same attitude towards the role of markets and governments, regardless of the context (e.g., welfare, environment, health) or the form of government intervention (law, taxation, subsidy, spending etc.). However, these studies have not examined attitudes towards, or belief in, the efficacy of government intervention in markets, through microeconomic policies on taxation (e.g., duties levied on particular products) or subsidies. This paper reports on the results of taking such a specific focus, that is, investigating economics students' knowledge of, and attitudes towards, government interventions in markets, specifically addressing the problem of climate change. We make use of unique, two-wave longitudinal data from Swedish university students. The data were collected during their initial semester at the university. The first data collection was performed at the beginning of the semester, August/September 2014, and the second wave of data collection was performed in December/January 2014/2015, at the end of the semester. We were able to match 414 students between the first and second survey. The results show that students of economics change their policy attitudes and become more knowledgeable in economics. After one semester, they are more likely to think of economic instruments/incentives (taxes and subsidies) as good and efficient policy instruments, and less likely to think that other instruments (regulation and information) are good and efficient policy instruments. However, further analyses show that knowledgeable students do not have different attitudes toward environmental policy instruments, compared to students who do not answer the questions correctly. Hence, there seems to be some other factor affecting students in economics during their first semester, that changes their attitudes towards environmental policy instruments.

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Section: General Attitudes Towards Markets and Government In The Economymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Effect Of Studying Economics On Attitudes Towards the Romentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning Economics and Attitudes to Market Solutions to Environmental Problems

2017

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“…surveys, laboratory and field experiments, have attempted to answer the question of whether the social behavior of economists actually differs from that of non‐economists. According to the findings from surveys, in comparison with non‐economists, economists tend to maximize profits ahead at the expense of the welfare of others (e.g., Rubinstein, ), favor the market mechanism, and also have a different perception of what is ‘fair’ or morally acceptable (Kearl et al., ; Pommerehne et al., ; Frey and Pommerehne, ; Frey et al., ; Cipriani et al., ; and Haucap and Just, ).…”

Section: The Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Economics Make Politicians Corrupt? Empirical Evidence from the United States Congress

Ruske

2015

Kyklos

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Summary The present article analyzes the differences between economists and non‐economists with respect to observed corruption behavior used as a proxy for selfishness. For this purpose, I analyzed real world data of relating to the 109th–111th US Congress between 2005 and 2009, including 695 representatives and senators. I show that those who hold a degree in economics are significantly more prone to corruption than ‘non‐economists’. These findings hence support the widespread, but controversial hypothesis in the ‘economist vs. non‐economist literature’ that economists lack what Frey and Meier (2004) call ‘social behavior’. Moreover, by using real world data, these findings overcome the lack of external validity, which impact on the (low cost) experiments and surveys to date.

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“…Frey et al (1993) conducted a survey among Swiss and German economics students and the general public and found that the proportion of economics students who considered market solutions to be fair was significantly higher than that of the general public. Haucap and Just (2010) carried out almost exactly the same survey The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0306-8293.htm among German officers enrolled in various courses of study (including economics). Their results showed the percentage of economics students who found the market mechanism "completely fair" or "acceptable" to be significantly higher than that of others.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, Cipriani et al (2009) found that third year economics students with more microeconomics teaching preferred the market as an allocation mechanism to alternatives (queue and lottery) more than did the fresher economics students. Haucap and Just (2010) found that the percentage of economics students who regarded the market mechanism as "completely fair" or "acceptable" increased when students become advanced economists. Specifically, Whaples (2005) and Breeden and Lephard (2005) showed that even taking a single course in economics changes the beliefs of students about the justice of the market: after students take an economics course, they view market solutions as being fairer than they had done previously.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attitudes of Turkish students against markets: does studying economics matter?

Çokgezen

Çilingirtürk

2014

International Journal of Social Economics

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Purpose -The literature shows economics students to be more market oriented than students from other disciplines. A major shortcoming of this work, however, is that it is based on research carried out in the west. The purpose of this paper is to examine the attitudes of Turkish economics students' towards markets. Design/methodology/approach -The study reported here uses a survey developed by Lephard and Breeden to investigate students' attitudes towards markets. The survey consists of 11 market-positive statements and 11 market-negative statements. Participants were asked to indicate their level of agreement with each statement, placed at between 0 and 100 per cent and classified into 11 categories. The survey was administered to economics, physics and mathematics students from different universities. Then, responses of economics students and others are compared. Findings -The results show that Turkish students are less market friendly than their western counterparts. Contrary to the findings of other studies, in Turkey studying economics is found to have no effect on attitudes in this respect. Originality/value -First, almost all of the other studies in this realm are all based on surveys carried out in the west. To the best of the knowledge, this is the first study for other parts of the world. Second, results show that Turkish economics students are less market friendly than their western counterparts, and that studying economics has no significant effect on this. These results are surprising and contrary to the consensus in the literature.

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Not guilty? Another look at the nature and nurture of economics students

Cited by 48 publications

References 20 publications

Learning Economics and Attitudes to Market Solutions to Environmental Problems

Learning Economics and Attitudes to Market Solutions to Environmental Problems

Does Economics Make Politicians Corrupt? Empirical Evidence from the United States Congress

Attitudes of Turkish students against markets: does studying economics matter?

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