Market-integrated participants display universalism in moral decision-making, & non-market participants make more moral decisions towards co-villagers

Market Participation and Moral Decision-Making: Experimental Evidence from Greenland. Gustav Agneman, Esther Chevrot-Bianco. The Economic Journal, ueac069, September 23 2022. https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/ueac069

Abstract: The relationship between market participation and moral values is the object of a long-lasting debate in economics, yet field evidence is mainly based on cross-cultural studies. We conduct rule-breaking experiments in 13 villages across Greenland (N=543), where stark contrasts in market participation within villages allow us to examine the relationship between market participation and moral decision-making holding village-level factors constant. First, we document a robust positive association between market participation and moral behaviour towards anonymous others. Second, market-integrated participants display universalism in moral decision-making, whereas non-market participants make more moral decisions towards co-villagers. A battery of robustness tests confirms that the behavioural differences between market and non-market participants are not driven by socioeconomic variables, childhood background, cultural identities, kinship structure, global connectedness, and exposure to religious and political institutions.

JEL C91 - Laboratory, Individual BehaviorD01 - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying PrinciplesD62 - Externalities