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Why are Economists so Different? Nature, Nurture and Gender Effects in a Simple Trust Game

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  • Müller, Andrea
  • Haucap, Justus

Abstract

We analyze the behavior of 577 economics and law students in a simple binary trust experiment in class-room. While economists are both significantly less trusting and less trustworthy than law students, this difference is largely due to heterogeneity between female law and economics students. While female law and economics students are already different in nature (during the first term of study), the gap between them also widens more drastically over the course of their study compared to their male counterparts. This finding is rather critical as the detailed composition of students is typically neglected in most experiments.

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  • Müller, Andrea & Haucap, Justus, 2014. "Why are Economists so Different? Nature, Nurture and Gender Effects in a Simple Trust Game," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100554, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc14:100554
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    1. Ökonomen sind anders, vor allem die Frauen
      by Patrick Bernau in Fazit on 2014-04-02 13:10:00

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    3. Joanna Dzionek-Kozłowska & Sharaf N. Rehman, 2017. "Indoctrination, Preselection or Culture? Economic Education and Attitudes towards Cooperation," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 6, pages 57-77.
    4. Eli Spiegelman, 2021. "Embracing The Dark Side? Testing The Socialization Of A Maximizing Mindset," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(2), pages 740-761, April.
    5. Mimra, Wanda & Nemitz, Janina & Waibel, Christian, 2020. "Voluntary pooling of genetic risk: A health insurance experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 864-882.
    6. Banerjee, Ritwik & Mitra, Arnab, 2018. "On monetary and non-monetary interventions to combat corruption," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 332-355.
    7. Mario A. Maggioni & Domenico Rossignoli, 2021. "If it Looks like a Human and Speaks like a Human..," DISEIS - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia internazionale, delle istituzioni e dello sviluppo dis2101, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimento di Economia internazionale, delle istituzioni e dello sviluppo (DISEIS).
    8. Aleksandra Staniszewska & Monika Czerwonka & Krzysztof Kompa, 2020. "Rational Behavior of Dictators - Evidence on Gender and Religiosity," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 26(3), pages 289-301, August.
    9. Espín, Antonio M. & Correa, Manuel & Ruiz-Villaverde, Alberto, 2022. "Economics students: Self-selected in preferences and indoctrinated in beliefs," International Review of Economics Education, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    10. Mario A. Maggioni & Domenico Rossignoli, 2021. "If it Looks like a Human and Speaks like a Human ... Dialogue and cooperation in human-robot interactions," Papers 2104.11652, arXiv.org, revised May 2021.
    11. Sundemo, Mattias & Löfgren, Åsa, 2022. "Do business and economics studies erode prosocial values?," Working Papers in Economics 827, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics, revised Jan 2024.
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    JEL classification:

    • A12 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines
    • A22 - General Economics and Teaching - - Economic Education and Teaching of Economics - - - Undergraduate
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior

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