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Economics education: literacy or mind framing? Evidence from a survey on the social building of trust in Portugal

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  • João Carlos Graça
  • João Carlos Lopes
  • Rita Gomes Correia

Abstract

This paper deals on the issue of whether or not studying economics has a relevant effect on molding the values and attitudes characteristic of the trust-building processes prevailing in a democratic society. Mainstream economics teaching, based on the self-interest model of rational, maximizing, individualistic representative agents, may well cause indoctrinating effects, creating or reinforcing both political conservatism and selfishness values and behaviors among economics students. This result is confirmed by most studies in relevant literature, but it may be otherwise explained by a so-called self-selection effect, suggesting that “economists are born, not made”. In this paper a contribution to this literature is made with more empirical evidence, namely the results of a survey entitled “Social Building of Trust in Portugal”, referring to a considerable diversity of samples (economics students, other students, ordinary citizens of two counties, urban and rural) and being applied in three different years: 2006, 2009 and 2012.

Suggested Citation

  • João Carlos Graça & João Carlos Lopes & Rita Gomes Correia, 2014. "Economics education: literacy or mind framing? Evidence from a survey on the social building of trust in Portugal," Working Papers Department of Economics 2014/20, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.
    • Handle: RePEc:ise:isegwp:wp202014
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economics education; indoctrination or self-selection effects; political conservatism and selfishness of economists; trust; social and political values and behaviors; Portugal;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values
    • A29 - General Economics and Teaching - - Economic Education and Teaching of Economics - - - Other
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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