IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jeclit/v57y2019i1p147-60.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Devil Is in the Details: Implications of Samuel Bowles's The Moral Economy for Economics and Policy Research

Author

Listed:
  • Rachel Kranton

Abstract

All economists should buy and read The Moral Economy by Samuel Bowles. The book challenges basic premises of economic theory and questions policies based on monetary incentives. Incentives not only crowd out intrinsic motivations, they erode the ethical and moral codes necessary for the workings of markets. Bowles boldly suggests that successful policies must combine incentives and moral messages, exploiting complementarities between the two. This essay argues that to achieve this objective, economists must study the local institutions and social context and engage untraditional data to uncover the interplay of incentives and identity.

Suggested Citation

  • Rachel Kranton, 2019. "The Devil Is in the Details: Implications of Samuel Bowles's The Moral Economy for Economics and Policy Research," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 57(1), pages 147-160, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:jeclit:v:57:y:2019:i:1:p:147-60
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/jel.20171463
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/jel.20171463
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=nHx8X2cJBqgzUiiBsZ84QFaEwcAKEubE
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Silvia Angerer & Daniela Glätzle‐Rützler & Christian Waibel, 2021. "Monitoring institutions in healthcare markets: Experimental evidence," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(5), pages 951-971, May.
    2. Alger, Ingela & Rivero-Wildemauwe, José Ignacio, 2024. "Doing the right thing (or not) in a lemons-like situation: on the role of social preferences and Kantian moral concerns," IAST Working Papers 24-161, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).
    3. Simon Gächter & Esther Kaiser & Manfred Königstein, 2024. "Incentive contracts crowd out voluntary cooperation: Evidence from gift-exchange experiments," Discussion Papers 2024-02, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    4. Eva Forslund & Magnus Henrekson, 2022. "The Virtues of Native Discourse: Striking a Balance Between English and the Native Language," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 19(2), pages 258–282-2, September.
    5. Rehse, Dominik & Tremöhlen, Felix, 2022. "Fostering participation in digital contact tracing," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    6. John Gibson, 2021. "The micro‐geography of academic research: How distinctive is economics?," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 68(4), pages 467-484, September.
    7. Dold, Malte & Lewis, Paul, 2022. "F.A. Hayek on the political economy of endogenous preferences: An historical overview and contemporary assessment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 104-119.
    8. Athias, Laure, 2024. "Common Good Institutions, Identity in the Workplace, and Value Dynamics," MPRA Paper 120588, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Patacchini, Eleonora & Barrett, Christopher & , & Walker, Thomas, 2019. "Altruism, Insurance, And Costly Solidarity Commitments1," CEPR Discussion Papers 14148, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Rehse, Dominik & Tremöhlen, Felix, 2020. "Fostering participation in digital public health interventions: The case of digital contact tracing," ZEW Discussion Papers 20-076, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    11. Niklas Elert & Magnus Henrekson, 2019. "The collaborative innovation bloc: A reply to our commentators," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 32(4), pages 349-361, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • A11 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Role of Economics; Role of Economists
    • A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values
    • D04 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Policy: Formulation; Implementation; Evaluation
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:jeclit:v:57:y:2019:i:1:p:147-60. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.