IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/hastef/0635.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Economic Influences on Moral Values

Author

Listed:

Abstract

This paper extends standard consumer theory to account for endogenous moral motivation. Building on cognitive dissonance theory, I show how moral values are affected by changes in prices and income. The key insight is that changes in prices and income that lead to higher consumption of an immoral good also affect the moral values held by the consumer so that the good is considered less immoral. A preliminary empirical analysis based on the World Values Survey is consistent with the model's predictions with respect to income.

Suggested Citation

  • Östling, Robert, 2006. "Economic Influences on Moral Values," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 635, Stockholm School of Economics, revised 07 Nov 2008.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:hastef:0635
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rabin, Mathew, 1991. "Cognitive Dissonance and Social Change," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt37b169jt, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    2. Linda Babcock & George Loewenstein, 1997. "Explaining Bargaining Impasse: The Role of Self-Serving Biases," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 109-126, Winter.
    3. Jean Tirole & Roland Bénabou, 2006. "Incentives and Prosocial Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1652-1678, December.
    4. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2006. "Belief in a Just World and Redistributive Politics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(2), pages 699-746.
    5. Rabin, Matthew, 1994. "Cognitive dissonance and social change," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 177-194, March.
    6. Saffer, Henry & Chaloupka, Frank, 1999. "The Demand for Illicit Drugs," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 37(3), pages 401-411, July.
    7. Chaloupka, Frank J. & Warner, Kenneth E., 2000. "The economics of smoking," Handbook of Health Economics, in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 29, pages 1539-1627, Elsevier.
    8. James Andreoni & Brian Erard & Jonathan Feinstein, 1998. "Tax Compliance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(2), pages 818-860, June.
    9. Bruno S. Frey, 1997. "Not Just for the Money," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1183.
    10. Mas-Colell, Andreu & Whinston, Michael D. & Green, Jerry R., 1995. "Microeconomic Theory," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195102680.
    11. Ebonya Washington & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2009. "Sticking with Your Vote: Cognitive Dissonance and Political Attitudes," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 86-111, January.
    12. William T. Dickens, 1986. "Crime and Punishment Again: The Economic Approach with a Psychological Twist," NBER Working Papers 1884, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Andrei Shleifer, 2004. "Does Competition Destroy Ethical Behavior?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 414-418, May.
    14. Robert J. Oxoby, 2004. "Cognitive dissonance, status and growth of the underclass," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(498), pages 727-749, October.
    15. James Konow, 2000. "Fair Shares: Accountability and Cognitive Dissonance in Allocation Decisions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 1072-1091, September.
    16. Lindbeck, A., 1994. "Welfare State Disincentives with Endogenous Habits and Norms," Papers 589, Stockholm - International Economic Studies.
    17. van de Ven, J., 2003. "Psychological sentiments and economic behavior," Other publications TiSEM f6dc1e5a-7c68-47cb-afa7-c, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    18. Samuel Bowles, 1998. "Endogenous Preferences: The Cultural Consequences of Markets and Other Economic Institutions," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(1), pages 75-111, March.
    19. repec:bla:scandj:v:97:y:1995:i:4:p:477-94 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Tore Ellingsen & Magnus Johannesson, 2008. "Pride and Prejudice: The Human Side of Incentive Theory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 990-1008, June.
    21. Haagsma, Rein & Koning, Niek, 2002. "Endogenous mobility-reducing norms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 523-547, December.
    22. Lindbeck, Assar, 1997. "Incentives and Social Norms in Household Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 370-377, May.
    23. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2003. "Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(3), pages 489-520.
    24. Oxoby, Robert J., 2003. "Attitudes and allocations: status, cognitive dissonance, and the manipulation of attitudes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 365-385, November.
    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. Mikael Elinder, 2012. "Correcting mistakes: cognitive dissonance and political attitudes in Sweden and the United States," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 235-249, October.
    2. Heinz Welsch & Jan Kühling, 2016. "Green status seeking and endogenous reference standards," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 18(4), pages 625-643, October.
    3. Giacomo Corneo & Frank Neher, 2014. "Income inequality and self-reported values," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 12(1), pages 49-71, March.
    4. James Alm & Benno Torgler, 2011. "Do Ethics Matter? Tax Compliance and Morality," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 101(4), pages 635-651, July.
    5. Nyborg, Karine, 2011. "I don't want to hear about it: Rational ignorance among duty-oriented consumers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 263-274, August.
    6. Shafiq, M. Najeeb, 2015. "Aspects of Moral Change in India, 1990–2006: Evidence from Public Attitudes toward Tax Evasion and Bribery," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 136-148.
    7. Nordblom, Katarina & Zamac, Jovan, 2011. "Endogenous Norm Formation Over the Life Cycle – The Case of Tax Evasion," Working Paper Series 2011:13, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    8. Martin Halla & Friedrich G. Schneider, 2005. "Taxes and Benefits: Two Distinct Options to Cheat on the State?," Economics working papers 2005-05, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.

    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. Nyborg, Karine, 2011. "I don't want to hear about it: Rational ignorance among duty-oriented consumers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 263-274, August.
    2. Mitesh Kataria & Tobias Regner, 2015. "Honestly, why are you donating money to charity? An experimental study about self-awareness in status-seeking behavior," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 79(3), pages 493-515, November.
    3. Smith, John, 2009. "Cognitive dissonance and the overtaking anomaly: Psychology in the principal-agent relationship," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 684-690, August.
    4. Jacobs Martin, 2016. "Accounting for Changing Tastes: Approaches to Explaining Unstable Individual Preferences," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 67(2), pages 121-183, August.
    5. Roland Benabou & Jean Tirole, 2009. "Over My Dead Body: Bargaining and the Price of Dignity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 459-465, May.
    6. Mark Bowden, 2015. "A model of information flows and confirmatory bias in financial markets," Decisions in Economics and Finance, Springer;Associazione per la Matematica, vol. 38(2), pages 197-215, October.
    7. Tanja Artiga González & Francesco Capozza & Georg D. Granic, 2022. "Can Cognitive Dissonance Theory Explain Action Induced Changes in Political Preferences?," CESifo Working Paper Series 9549, CESifo.
    8. Rebitzer, James B. & Taylor, Lowell J., 2011. "Extrinsic Rewards and Intrinsic Motives: Standard and Behavioral Approaches to Agency and Labor Markets," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 8, pages 701-772, Elsevier.
    9. Gosnell, Greer K., 2018. "Communicating Resourcefully: A Natural Field Experiment on Environmental Framing and Cognitive Dissonance in Going Paperless," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 128-144.
    10. Vanessa Valero, 2022. "Redistribution and beliefs about the source of income inequality," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(3), pages 876-901, June.
    11. Romain Espinosa & Jan Stoop, 2021. "Do people really want to be informed? Ex-ante evaluations of information-campaign effectiveness," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(4), pages 1131-1155, December.
    12. Rustichini, Aldo & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2014. "Moral hypocrisy, power and social preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PA), pages 10-24.
    13. Larry Epstein & Igor Kopylov, 2006. "Cognitive Dissonance and Choice," RCER Working Papers 525, University of Rochester - Center for Economic Research (RCER).
    14. Ging-Jehli, Nadja R. & Schneider, Florian H. & Weber, Roberto A., 2020. "On self-serving strategic beliefs," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 341-353.
    15. McDonald, Ian M. & Nikiforakis, Nikos & Olekalns, Nilss & Sibly, Hugh, 2013. "Social comparisons and reference group formation: Some experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 75-89.
    16. Oxoby, Robert J. & Smith, Alexander Apt, 2014. "Using Cognitive Dissonance to Manipulate Social Preferences," IZA Discussion Papers 8310, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Gosnell, Greer, 2018. "Communicating resourcefully: a natural field experiment on environmental framing and cognitive dissonance in going paperless," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 89815, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Haagsma, Rein & Mouche, Pierre v., 2013. "Egalitarian norms, economic development, and ethnic polarization," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 719-744.
    19. Greer Gosnell, 2017. "Be who you ought or be who you are? Environmental framing and cognitive dissonance in going paperless," GRI Working Papers 269, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    20. Houser, Daniel & Xiao, Erte & McCabe, Kevin & Smith, Vernon, 2008. "When punishment fails: Research on sanctions, intentions and non-cooperation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 509-532, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumer theory; moral values; endogenous preferences; cognitive dissonance; self-serving bias;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hhs:hastef:0635. 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: Helena Lundin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/erhhsse.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.