IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jbecon/v90y2020i3d10.1007_s11573-019-00964-z.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

“There’s Life in the Old Dog Yet”: The Homo economicus model and its value for behavioral ethics

Author

Listed:
  • Philipp Schreck

    (Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg)

  • Dominik Aaken

    (University of Salzburg)

  • Karl Homann

    (Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich)

Abstract

The Homo economicus model (HEM) is widely used in the social sciences in general and in business ethics in particular. Despite its success, the model is frequently criticized for being empirically flawed and normatively dangerous, and its critics argue that it should be abandoned and replaced by more realistic models of human behavior. In response to the HEM’s critics, this paper develops a precise methodological approach that makes it possible to integrate within the HEM seemingly contradictory empirical evidence. Using the methodology we develop, we will integrate recent findings in behavioral economics and show how a rational-choice approach to behavioral ethics can illuminate the emergence, salience and persistence of morality.

Suggested Citation

  • Philipp Schreck & Dominik Aaken & Karl Homann, 2020. "“There’s Life in the Old Dog Yet”: The Homo economicus model and its value for behavioral ethics," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 90(3), pages 401-425, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jbecon:v:90:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s11573-019-00964-z
    DOI: 10.1007/s11573-019-00964-z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11573-019-00964-z
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11573-019-00964-z?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    2. Robert H. Frank & Thomas Gilovich & Dennis T. Regan, 1993. "Does Studying Economics Inhibit Cooperation?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(2), pages 159-171, Spring.
    3. Bauman, Yoram & Rose, Elaina, 2011. "Selection or indoctrination: Why do economics students donate less than the rest?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 318-327, August.
    4. Güth, Werner & Kocher, Martin G., 2014. "More than thirty years of ultimatum bargaining experiments: Motives, variations, and a survey of the recent literature," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 396-409.
    5. Andreoni, James A & Miller, John H, 1993. "Rational Cooperation in the Finitely Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma: Experimental Evidence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 103(418), pages 570-585, May.
    6. Sheila C. Dow, 2012. "Mainstream Economic Methodology," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Foundations for New Economic Thinking, chapter 7, pages 105-128, Palgrave Macmillan.
    7. Hirschman, Albert O., 1985. "Against Parsimony: Three Easy Ways of Complicating some Categories of Economic Discourse," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 7-21, April.
    8. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, "undated". "Theories of Fairness and Reciprocity - Evidence and Economic Applications," IEW - Working Papers 075, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    9. Michael Kosfeld & Akira Okada & Arno Riedl, 2009. "Institution Formation in Public Goods Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1335-1355, September.
    10. Matthias Sutter & Stefan Haigner & Martin G. Kocher, 2010. "Choosing the Carrot or the Stick? Endogenous Institutional Choice in Social Dilemma Situations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(4), pages 1540-1566.
    11. Dewatripont,Mathias & Hansen,Lars Peter & Turnovsky,Stephen J. (ed.), 2003. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521818728, September.
    12. Becker, Gary S, 1993. "Nobel Lecture: The Economic Way of Looking at Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(3), pages 385-409, June.
    13. Viktor J. Vanberg, 2002. "Rational Choice vs. Program-based Behavior," Rationality and Society, , vol. 14(1), pages 7-54, February.
    14. Andreoni, James & Samuelson, Larry, 2006. "Building rational cooperation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 127(1), pages 117-154, March.
    15. repec:feb:natura:0056 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Gürerk, Özgür & Irlenbusch, Bernd & Rockenbach, Bettina, 2014. "On cooperation in open communities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 220-230.
    17. Boyu Zhang & Cong Li & Hannelore Silva & Peter Bednarik & Karl Sigmund, 2014. "The evolution of sanctioning institutions: an experimental approach to the social contract," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 17(2), pages 285-303, June.
    18. Douglass C. North, 1991. "Institutions," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 97-112, Winter.
    19. Sugden, Robert, 1991. "Rational Choice: A Survey of Contributions from Economics and Philosophy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(407), pages 751-785, July.
    20. Viktor Vanberg, 2004. "The rationality postulate in economics: its ambiguity, its deficiency and its evolutionary alternative," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(1), pages 1-29.
    21. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, "undated". "Why Social Preferences Matter - The Impact of Non-Selfish Motives on Competition," IEW - Working Papers 084, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    22. Dewatripont,Mathias & Hansen,Lars Peter & Turnovsky,Stephen J. (ed.), 2003. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521524131, September.
    23. Boland, Lawrence A, 1981. "On the Futility of Criticizing the Neoclassical Maximization Hypothesis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 1031-1036, December.
    24. Elinor Ostrom, 2000. "Collective Action and the Evolution of Social Norms," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 137-158, Summer.
    25. Steven Levitt & John List, 2008. "Homo economicus evolves," Artefactual Field Experiments 00095, The Field Experiments Website.
    26. Loewenstein, George & Thaler, Richard H, 1989. "Intertemporal Choice," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 181-193, Fall.
    27. Kluver, Jesse & Frazier, Rebecca & Haidt, Jonathan, 2014. "Behavioral ethics for Homo economicus, Homo heuristicus, and Homo duplex," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 123(2), pages 150-158.
    28. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    29. Dewatripont,Mathias & Hansen,Lars Peter & Turnovsky,Stephen J. (ed.), 2003. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521818742, September.
    30. Dewatripont,Mathias & Hansen,Lars Peter & Turnovsky,Stephen J. (ed.), 2003. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521524117, September.
    31. Claus Dierksmeier, 2011. "The Freedom–Responsibility Nexus in Management Philosophy and Business Ethics," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 101(2), pages 263-283, June.
    32. Simon Gachter & Ernst Fehr, 2000. "Cooperation and Punishment in Public Goods Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 980-994, September.
    33. Camerer, Colin & Weigelt, Keith, 1988. "Experimental Tests of a Sequential Equilibrium Reputation Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(1), pages 1-36, January.
    34. repec:feb:framed:0077 is not listed on IDEAS
    35. Schreck, Philipp & Aaken, Dominik van & Donaldson, Thomas, 2013. "Positive Economics and the Normativistic Fallacy: Bridging the Two Sides of CSR," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(2), pages 297-329, April.
    36. James Andreoni & William Harbaugh & Lise Vesterlund, 2003. "The Carrot or the Stick: Rewards, Punishments, and Cooperation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 893-902, June.
    37. Hosmer, LaRue Tone & Chen, Feng, 2001. "Ethics and Economics: Growing Opportunities for Joint Research," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(4), pages 599-622, October.
    38. Ananish Chaudhuri, 2011. "Sustaining cooperation in laboratory public goods experiments: a selective survey of the literature," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(1), pages 47-83, March.
    39. Putterman, Louis & Tyran, Jean-Robert & Kamei, Kenju, 2011. "Public goods and voting on formal sanction schemes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(9-10), pages 1213-1222, October.
    40. Christian Korth, 2009. "Fairness in Bargaining and Markets," Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems, Springer, number 978-3-642-02253-1, October.
    41. William H. Meckling, 1976. "Values and the Choice of the Model of the Individual in the Social Sciences," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 112(IV), pages 545-560, December.
    42. Casari, Marco & Luini, Luigi, 2009. "Cooperation under alternative punishment institutions: An experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 273-282, August.
    43. Andreoni, James & Gee, Laura K., 2012. "Gun for hire: Delegated enforcement and peer punishment in public goods provision," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(11), pages 1036-1046.
    44. Christian Korth, 2009. "Game Theory and Fairness Preferences," Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems, in: Fairness in Bargaining and Markets, chapter 0, pages 19-34, Springer.
    45. Etzioni, Amitai, 2010. "Behavioral economics: A methodological note," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 51-54, February.
    46. Dewatripont,Mathias & Hansen,Lars Peter & Turnovsky,Stephen J. (ed.), 2003. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521818735, September.
    47. Dewatripont,Mathias & Hansen,Lars Peter & Turnovsky,Stephen J. (ed.), 2003. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521524124, September.
    48. Edward P. Lazear, 2000. "Economic Imperialism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(1), pages 99-146.
    49. repec:feb:artefa:0095 is not listed on IDEAS
    50. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, 2002. "Why Social Preferences Matter -- The Impact of Non-Selfish Motives on Competition, Cooperation and Incentives," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(478), pages 1-33, March.
    51. James M. Buchanan, 1995. "Individual Rights, Emergent Social States, and Behavioral Feasibility," Rationality and Society, , vol. 7(2), pages 141-150, April.
    52. Steven D. Levitt & John A. List, 2007. "What Do Laboratory Experiments Measuring Social Preferences Reveal About the Real World?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 153-174, Spring.
    53. Greif, Avner, 2000. "The fundamental problem of exchange: A research agenda in Historical Institutional Analysis," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(3), pages 251-284, December.
    54. Pies, Ingo & Hielscher, Stefan & Beckmann, Markus, 2009. "Moral Commitments and the Societal Role of Business: An Ordonomic Approach to Corporate Citizenship," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(3), pages 375-401, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. M. Lunkenheimer & A. Kracklauer & G. Klinkova & M. Grabinski, 2022. "Homo economicus to model human behavior is ethically doubtful and mathematically inconsistent," Papers 2207.02902, arXiv.org.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Barmettler, Franziska & Fehr, Ernst & Zehnder, Christian, 2012. "Big experimenter is watching you! Anonymity and prosocial behavior in the laboratory," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 17-34.
    2. Simon Gaechter, 2006. "Conditional cooperation: Behavioral regularities from the lab and the field and their policy implications," Discussion Papers 2006-03, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    3. Simon Cornée & Ariane Szafarz, 2014. "Vive la Différence: Social Banks and Reciprocity in the Credit Market," Post-Print CEB, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, vol. 125(3), pages 361-380.
    4. Weimann Joachim, 2015. "Die Rolle von Verhaltensökonomik und experimenteller Forschung in Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Politikberatung," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 16(3), pages 231-252, October.
    5. Martin Beckenkamp & Heike Hennig-Schmidt & Frank P. Maier-Rigaud, 2007. "Cooperation in Symmetric and Asymmetric Prisoner's Dilemma Games," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2006_25, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    6. Casal, Sandro & Fallucchi, Francesco & Quercia, Simone, 2019. "The role of morals in three-player ultimatum games," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 67-79.
    7. Pedro FrancŽs-G—mez & Lorenzo Sacconi & Marco Faillo, 2012. "Behavioral Business Ethics as a Method for Normative Business Ethics," Econometica Working Papers wp42, Econometica.
    8. KAMEI Kenju, 2022. "Self-regulatory Resources and Institutional Formation: A first experimental test," Discussion papers 22084, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    9. Đula, Ivan & Größler, Andreas, 2021. "Inequity aversion in dynamically complex supply chains," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 291(1), pages 309-322.
    10. Ederer, Florian & Patacconi, Andrea, 2010. "Interpersonal comparison, status and ambition in organizations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 348-363, August.
    11. Kamei, Kenju, 2024. "Self-regulatory resources and institutional formation: An experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 354-374.
    12. Dominique Demougin & Claude Fluet & Carsten Helm, 2006. "Output and wages with inequality averse agents," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(2), pages 399-413, May.
    13. Dickinson, David L. & Masclet, David & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2015. "Norm enforcement in social dilemmas: An experiment with police commissioners," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 74-85.
    14. Stephan Meier & Alois Stutzer, 2008. "Is Volunteering Rewarding in Itself?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 75(297), pages 39-59, February.
    15. Stephanie Rosenkranz & Patrick W. Schmitz, 2007. "Reserve Prices in Auctions as Reference Points," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(520), pages 637-653, April.
    16. Andreas Roider & Patrick W. Schmitz, 2012. "Auctions with Anticipated Emotions: Overbidding, Underbidding, and Optimal Reserve Prices," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(3), pages 808-830, September.
    17. Simon Cornée & Marc Jegers & Ariane Szafarz, 2018. "A Theory of Social Finance," Working Papers halshs-01717167, HAL.
    18. Eva I. Hoppe & Patrick W. Schmitz, 2013. "Contracting under Incomplete Information and Social Preferences: An Experimental Study," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(4), pages 1516-1544.
    19. Lorenz Goette & David Huffman & Stephan Meier & Matthias Sutter, 2010. "Group Membership, Competition, and Altruistic versus Antisocial Punishment: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Army Groups," Working Papers 2010-24, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    20. Christina Fong & Erzo Luttmer, 2007. "What determines giving to hurricane katrina victims? Experimental evidence on income, race, and fairness," Artefactual Field Experiments 00046, The Field Experiments Website.

    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:spr:jbecon:v:90:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s11573-019-00964-z. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.