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

Ensino da Economia: literacia ou condicionamento mental? Evidências a partir de um estudo sobre confiança em ­Portugal

João Carlos Graça*, João Carlos Lopes* e Rita Gomes Correia*

*Universidade de Lisboa, ISEG, SOCIUS (Centro de Investigação em Sociologia Económica das Organizações), Rua Miguel Lui, 20 - 1249-078 Lisboa. E-mails: jgraca@iseg.ulisboa.pt, jcflopes@iseg.ulisboa.pt e ritagomescorreia@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS: Economics education; free-marketeering of economists; trust; social and political values, attitudes and behaviors.

RESUMO

Os estudos universitários de economia podem ter um efeito relevante no moldar dos valores e atitudes correspondentes à construção da confiança numa sociedade democrática. O ensino da economia mainstream, baseado no modelo do “agente representativo”, movido pelo interesse próprio, racional e maximizador, pode ter efeitos doutrinantes, reforçando quer a inclinação pró-mercado, quer valores, atitudes e comportamentos egoístas entre os estudantes. Neste trabalho apresenta-se uma contribuição para essas discussões, tendo por base os resultados de uma pesquisa realizada em Portugal, com uma considerável diversidade de amostras (estudantes de economia, outros estudantes, cidadãos comuns) e aplicada em três anos diferentes: 2006, 2009 e 2012.

PALAVRAS-CHAVE: ensino de economia; inclinação pró-mercado dos economistas; confiança; comportamentos, atitudes e valores sociais e políticos.

INTRODUCTION¹

It was long ago emphasized by Stigler (1959) that mainstream economics, based on the self-interest model of rational, maximizing, individualistic representative agents (homooeconomicus), has obvious implicit, and in certain cases even explicit indoctrinating practical effects (Kirchgässner, 2014). A good example of this, also from Stigler (1984), refers to the active principle of the so-called economist as a preacher. The potential effects of economics indoctrination are twofold. Firstly, it can create a tendency to become more politically “conservative”, or rather free-marketeering, in the sense of preferring private versus public forms of regulation,i.e., prices and ability-cum- willingness to pay over common fairness mechanisms in providing scarce and basic goods and services (Caplan, 2002;Gandal et al., 2005;Kahneman,Knetsch andThaler, 1986;Kearl et al., 1979;Kirchgässner, 2005). This tendency is reinforced by the use of overly mathematical methods, which, according to Rubinstein (2006), encourage students to lean toward profit maximization instead of caring about the welfare of workers in his experience.

Second, the teaching of mainstream economics can lead to acting more selfishly, at least in the sense of having an increased disposition to free-ride, defect, and not cooperate with others (Frey and Meyer, 2004, 2005; Meier and Frey, 2004). For an interesting discussion about fairness and the assumptions of economics seeKahneman et al. (1986). A reflection on altruism and economics is made by Simon (1993) and a careful analysis of the necessity and possible effects of economic ethics,i.e., “ethics instruction in an economic context” is produced byKonow (2014). These are very important issues, considering the important role that professional economists play in several domains of our societies, which became even more crucial after the enormous economic, social, and political effects of the recent financial and economic crisis, as stated by, among many others, Colander et al. (2009), Lawson (2009), McDonald (2009),Kirman (2010) and Li and Wang (2013).

It is also worth noting that the self-interest/homooeconomicus model and the neo-classical practices based on it, through the so-called Economic Imperialism effect, “ranges far beyond its field of origin in micro-economics into the disciplines of political science and macro-sociology and is growing in importance even in cultural sciences and micro-sociology (Lazear, 2000). The boom of public choice-theory in political science is only one vivid example” (Hellmich, 2012, pp. 3). The preferences, attitudes, and behavior consequences of this kind of theoretical export should in the future be taken into account and tested when making comparisons between students of economics and students of other disciplines.

In fact, until today most comparative empirical exercises use samples of economics students and other students, not exposed to economics teaching, and as a general balance, it appears to be reasonably well documented that economics students and professionals tend to show an above average self-interested behavior in free-rider experiments, ultimatum bargaining games, surveys on charitable giving, and Prisoner’s Dilemma contexts. The empirical evidence appears to support the prevalence of the so-called “self-selection” hypothesis (economists are born, nature commands) over the “indoctrination” hypothesis (economists are made and nurtured through their education), which may in a certain sense proceed to excuse the dismal science,i.e., economists generally already tend to be selfish, and perhaps also politically free-marketeering, even before becoming economists (and economics students), and so it is natural that they behave selfishly in surveys, games, experiments, and real life, coherently with their natural traits and the theoretical norms they were attracted to study. On the other hand, a critical view of this literature is exposed inLanteri (2008), calling these exercises and their conclusions a “moral trial” of economists, pointing to the literature’s methodological limitations and questioning its dichotomy:

From high school onwards, there are a plurality of explanations that may capture the observed differences in behavior between economists and non-economists: some economists may be selfish and self-select into the discipline; upon joining its ranks, some may adjust their decisions to those of the stereotypical economist; systematic exposure to the concepts of self-interest and trade-offs may make those concepts especially salient and therefore more likely to characterize one’s framing of a situation; and, over time, the repeated exposure to the focus on material individual incentives may induce the expectation that other people are greedy or the belief that fairness need not be a major concern. These explanations are not mutually exclusive and it may very well be the case that different explanations are appropriate for the behavior observed in different experimental tasks and for economists of different seniority [Lanteri, 2008, p. 19].

Another important qualification worth mentioning, when assessing the differences between economists and non-economists, is the necessity to investigate whether gender, age, and income effects exist and the extent to which they are statistically significant. The empirical evidence is far from completely clear, but a tendency appears to emerge suggesting that male, younger, and high income economists are more prone to free-marketeering and tend to behave more selfishly and cooperate less.

REVIEW OF EARLIER STUDIES

There are mainly three kinds of empirical exercises within this literature: surveys by questionnaire, laboratory (or game) experiments, and real life (or field) experiments. This section presents a chronology of several studies made, highlighting, the main differences in economists’ values, attitudes, and behaviors, confronted with those characteristic of other citizens.

In one of the first exercises of the survey type, Scott and Rothman (1975) concluded that an introductory economics course tends to make students of this discipline more “conservative” (or indeed free-marketeering), confirming the prediction by Stigler (1959). Their results were obtained from a 41-item social opinion questionnaire responded to by 175 students at Carnegie-Mellon University, and the findings also pointed to other interesting trends, namely that, ceteris paribus, the older the student, the more “conservative” he/she is likely to be, that the college experience is a liberalizing one, and that female students are more liberalized by the college environment than are males.

In what is considered to be the first laboratory experiment of this literature,Marwell and Ames (1981) concluded that in a Free-Rider Experiment first-year graduate students in economics contribute an average of less than half the amount donated to a public fund by students of other disciplines (20 per cent versus 41 per cent). They also asked questions about “fairness” and noted

There was surprising unanimity of thought [among everyone except the economics graduate students] regarding what was considered fair… [In contrast, m]ore than one-third of the economists either refused to answer the question regarding what is fair, or gave very complex,uncodable responses. It seems that the meaning of ‘fairness’ in this context was somewhat alien for this group. Those who did respond were much more likely to say that little or no contribution [to the group exchange] was ‘fair’. In addition, the economics graduate students were about half as likely as other subjects to indicate that they were ‘concerned with fairness’ in making their investment decision [Marwell and Ames, 1981, pp. 308-309].

In a two-person Ultimatum Bargaining Game, conducted by Carter and Irons (1991), in which one person (the Proposer) suggests a division of $10 between him/herself and a second person (the Responder), on average economics students propose, and also tend to accept, smaller amounts, the authors arguing that “economists are born, not made”.

In a Prisoner’s Dilemma Game Experiment, Frank,Gilovich, and Regan (1993) found that economics majors defect significantly more often (60 percent) than do non-majors (30 percent), and the probability of an economist to defect is almost 0.17 higher than for a non-economist, which allowed the authors to conclude that the results appear to support the learning hypotheses as defined byMarwell and Ames (1981).

In a further attempt to assess whether training in economics inhibits cooperation in social dilemmas, Frank,Gilovich, and Regan (1993) created two questionnaires, one for testing free riding in charitable giving and time spent in volunteer activities, and the other for testing honesty. The results of the first, on charitable giving, supported the hypothesis that economists are more likely to free ride, but the second does not,i.e., economists spent as much time as others in volunteer activities.

Frey,Pommerehne, andGygi (1993) conducted a survey on the views about the fairness of market systems and other allocation mechanisms (such as “first-come, first-served” and “a public body”) among three different groups. The first group consisted of a random telephone-book selection from the general population, the second was a group of students in introductory economics classes at three different universities in Germany and Switzerland, and the third group consisted of advanced economics students. They concluded that economics students are significantly more inclined to prefer the “willingness to pay” criterion: roughly two thirds of the students rejected allocation by the market-system in these situations, whereas five sixths of the general public rejected it. However, the authors found little difference between first-year and senior economics students, rejecting the indoctrination hypothesis.

In a Real-World (Lost Letter) Experiment, Yezer, Goldfarb, andPoppen (1996) contradicted previous results, noticing that economics students return significantly more letters containing money (18 of the 32 “lost” letters, or 56 percent), and therefore they are substantially more honest than students of other disciplines, who returned only 10 in 32 such letters, or 31 percent.

On the other hand, after conducting an Experimental Solidarity Game, Selten andOckenfels (1998) concluded that economists give significantly less than non-economists. ButLaband and Bail (1999), comparing the incidence of “cheating” on their Association dues, found that professional economists are significantly more honest/cooperative than professional political scientists and sociologists (see also Bail andLaband, 1996).

In an Experiment on Corruption, led by Frank and Schulze (2000), economics students were significantly more prone to corruption than other students, but first-year students behave no differently than older students, confirming the self-selection hypothesis favored by Frey,Pommerehne, andGygi (1993). However,Nijhawan and Ellis (2003) did not detect high school students preparing for a business career to be significantly more “conservative” than their peer students who do not have this specific interest in business. Replicating the study of Frey et al. (1993),Haucap and Just (2004) reported a significant indoctrination effect among main-stage economics students, but a much weaker one among their peers on the business-track.

In one of the most representative and widely cited field experiments in this literature, Meier and Frey (2004), observing the Actual (Real Life) Behavior of students with respect to anonymously donating money to a charitable fund, concluded that the willingness to behave pro-socially is lower for economics and business students. They also claimed that the greater selfishness of economics students was due to self-selection, and not to economic education.

After conducting a survey among undergraduate students on the conflict between profit maximization and the welfare of workers who would be fired to achieve it, Rubinstein (2006) concluded that economics students exhibit a much stronger inclination to maximize profit than do students of other disciplines (mathematics, law, philosophy, and business administration), and observed that this tendency is reinforced when a mathematical formula is used in enunciating the question.

Cipriani,Lubian, andZago (2009) conducted a survey among a large group of undergraduate students of different disciplines in order to assess the effects of the study of economics on the perception of the fairness and efficiency of the market mechanism. They concluded that there are significant differences between economics students and other undergraduates, suggesting the presence of both a selection bias against the market system in non-economics students and an indoctrination effect in economics students,i.e., “it appears that orthodox microeconomics teaching encourages students to emphasize efficiency considerations in value judgment”.

In a dictatorship game designed to test the effect of learning on people’s fairness, Cappelen,Sørensen, andTungodden (2010) detected the existence of a learning effect through an increase in the number of participants among second-year and fourth-year students of economics and business administration who offered nothing to their opponent.

Wang, Malhotra, andMurnighan (2011)assessed the potential effects of economics teaching on greed, with three studies using multiple methods, and reached the following conclusions: (i) “economics majors and students who had taken multiple economics courses kept more money in a money allocation task (the Dictator Game)”; (ii) “economics education was associated with more positive attitudes towards greed and towards one’s greedy behavior”; (iii) “a short statement on the societal benefits of self-interest led to more positive ratings of greed’s moral acceptability, even for non-economic students”.

Following the well-known work of Frey and Meier (2003) about the relative (lack of) generosity of economics students, Bauman and Rose (2011) studied administrative data on donations to social programs by students at the University of Washington. They concluded “that there is a selection effect for economics majors, who are less likely to donate than other students, and that there is an indoctrination effect for non-majors but not for majors”.

In the (to our knowledge) most recent contribution to this literature, Hole (2013) studied “how do economists differ from others in distributive situations?” by means of a careful dictatorship experiment with a production phase and a communication phase run with first-year economics and engineering students. She concluded that economics students attribute relatively little weight to fairness considerations and tend to twist the concept of fairness in favor of themselves, while engineering students recognize a comparatively greater weight to fairness considerations and integrity. She also found that economics students are more free-marketeering (or rather “libertarians”, to use her taxonomy) than engineering students (who are more “liberal egalitarians”, in her words).

To sum up, on the whole we are left with a mixture of contradictory evidence, yet still mostly pointing to both free-marketeering and a selfish behavior associated with the study of economics, regardless of whether those are due to self-selection (“economists are born”) or to an indoctrination (“economists are made”) effect.

A SURVEY ABOUT THE SOCIAL BUILDING OF TRUST IN PORTUGAL

Personal interviews were made to all respondents, in order to explain and better control the answers to 50 questions concerning various political, economic, social, and cultural dimensions of trust and behavior in general. In fact, this is a much more detailed survey than the well-known World Values Survey, although for the purpose of this article only a small part was used, namely eleven queries directly and explicitly related with political attitudes, leaning to free-riding and trust/distrust in others. There is no gender bias in either of the groups, but a strong age bias is present, with considerably aged non-academic persons and, of course, rather young “economists” and other students. Considered overall, there is an unfortunate scarcity of middle-aged respondents in the sample, that is only partially compensated for by the fact that a considerable segment of Master students in the fourth group of participants belongs to intermediate age cohorts.

THE INDOCTRINATING EFFECTS OF TEACHING ECONOMICS

We now discuss the most important results regarding the potential indoctrinating effects of teaching economics, which has to do with values, attitudes, and social and political behavior at large, as far as these four groups are concerned. For ease of reading and economy of space, results are presented in figures only, but the data are available from the authors upon request.

Starting with two political variables, “Vote in last parliamentary elections” and “Self-image in political (left/right) terms” (Figures 1 and 2), we can easily conclude that economics students are more right-wing leaning (to the center-right, PSD⁴, and right, CDS⁵, sections of the spectrum of the Portuguese political system), both in actual vote and concerning self-image. Notice that both “economists” and other students have a vote orientation less focused on what we may designate as the “Big Center” (PS+PSD), and indeed considerably more prone to “extreme”, or “radical” options, but whereas “economists” lean to the right, other students lean to the left⁶ or choose not to respond. Moreover, the right-wing leaning of “economists” has clearly grown from 2006 to 2012, in terms of both vote and self-perception.

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The third variable considered in this study is the opinion of respondents concerning the desirable regulation of the economy (Figure 6) and, as we might expect, “economists” are clearly much more pro-market. However, interestingly enough, the other students are much more pro-state and less pro-market; indeed, even less pro-market than commoners (relatively old people). The generic pattern of responses is valid for “economists” in both 2006 and 2012, setting them quite apart from the remaining population: they are comparatively free-marketeer and anti-state, yet still with these characteristics being greatly attenuated in the last inquiry (which ought to be considered in perspective, taking into account the possible effects of the economic crisis, namely including the public bail-out of private banks after 2008). Another important feature is the fact that all groups of students show a markedly lower inclination for third-sector than do commoners.

In a clear-cut difference with the patterns identified for the previous question, if we consider now the interest regarding politics, the most important trait to be noticed is the fact that, whereas other students declare an average interest that is considerably below the level of commoners, economists in their turn reveal a comparatively high percentage of those answering “plenty” or “some”. These categories total 65.8 per cent in 2006, further growing to 70.6 per cent in 2012, as opposed to 46.2 for commoners and 22.1 for other students. In the opposite extreme, those answering “none” drop from values close to 28 per cent referring to commoners and other students, to roughly 6 per cent for economists in both years. This trend of answers by economics students has a clear contrast, and is worth being emphasized, with the importance recognized for national problems (previous question, Figure 10). There may be a widespread, strictly utilitarian interest in politics among economists, seen in a greater-than-average appetite for politics that does not match any possible genuine concern for the respublica. Instead, such an appetite likely stems from a more or less subliminal notion of being more-than-average gifted for political positions coupled with a belief that economists may be more likely to benefit personally from political decisions and positions (see also comments on Figure 15). This high inclination by economists to ­political life ought to be considered in close connection with a tendency of political agents to increasingly reproduce mental devices and rhetorical resources originally from the realm of economics, and with a possible cumulative circular causation: as politics are “colonized” by an economics-inspired variety of modus operandi, the more economists understandably find politics attractive, and reciprocally their abundance in political circles tends to further induce the ways of thinking and the ways of doing into models drawn from economics.

Answers to the question “What is the real influence of Portuguese citizens in the course of political events in Portugal?” also reveal interesting patterns, with the aggregate of “plenty” and “some” categories going from 40.5 in other students and 44.3 per cent in commoners to 47.4 in 2006 economists and 48.8 in 2012 economists. This variable ought to be confronted with the importance acknowledged regarding collective national problems (Figure 10) and the interest in politics (Figure 11). Economists have no greater-than-average interest in national problems, but they exhibit a higher interest in politics perhaps due to the fact that they have utilitarian motives for that, among other things because they very probably believe themselves to be more qualified than common citizens, and also that they can influence the course of events.

The next variable indicates a possible strong age effect: students, mostly young people, on average claim to generally “expect the worst” rather less than do commoners. Indeed, this last group, mostly composed of aged people, overwhelmingly declares to expect the worst: 80 per cent, against values between 50 and 60 per cent for all students. Another important element is the fact that economists are considerably more prone to trust than all of the other groups: 19.7 per cent for commoners and 23.3 per cent for other students, against values close to 31 per cent for economists in both years. It is important to note that this evidence may be prima facie interpreted as contrary to the self-interest model of indoctrination implicit in mainstream economics, but we should also consider with more detail the real meaning referred to by respondents to “trust”, which very likely comes mostly associated with feelings and notions stemming out of self-reliance. Economists may well be considered to be less of a trust-prone group, rather more inclined to self-reliance, indeed considerably more self-reliant than other students: see Figure 16. This interpretation seems fully consistent, for instance, with the assessment of a greater influence of citizens over the course of political events, as noted above (see Figure 15).

There is also strong empirical evidence of more selfish behavior by economics students, which is consistent with most earlier literature. In fact, responses are more supportive of the legitimacy of: free-riding in social benefits (Figure 18), tax avoidance (Figure 19), and throwing garbage in the street (Figure 20).

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Received 06-02-2015. Accepted for publication 23-10-2015.

NOTES

²There is a vast number of contributions available proceeding to the discussion of this subject-matter in officially sociological terms, namely concerning the debates within the ambit of the so-called “New Economic Sociology”, but for the purpose of this article we deem it unnecessary to go further into the discussion of that cluster of issues (for further information, see Marques 2003,Graça 2012). Suffice it to mention that although strict “trust in others” is directly addressed only in a small number of queries, trust is indeed the overall background that supported the entirety of the original questionnaire.

³The two former groups were those corresponding to the survey on the ‘Social Building of Trust in Portugal’. Questionnaires were directed to ISEG students mostly out of practical convenience, given the fact that SOCIUS, the research-center promoting the survey, belongs to this same school. Non-economists were initially addressed in two parishes, one being rural (Vila Verde dos Francos, Alenquer), according to a usual demographic criterion, and another one urban (Sé, Lisbon). Naturally, this group corresponds to a pool much different from students in terms of age, but in the parish ofSé the population addressed was especially aged, not so much the same as in the case of Vila Verde dos Francos. Globally considered, “civilians” were still somewhat older than the average of the Portuguese population. “Other students” in 2009 studied in the Architecture School of the University of Lisbon, in the Music High School, and/or in the High School of Health Technologies (both pertaining to Lisbon’s Polytechnic Institute). In 2012 the questionnaire was again directed to ISEG students, still partly out of practical convenience, given the continued support of SOCIUS, but also according to a ceteris paribus principle, aiming at checking the effects of the economic crisis that in the meantime had arisen.

⁴Partido Social Democrata, Social Democrat Party, which is a relatively “conservative” or free-marketeering party, despite the name.

⁵ Centro Democrático Social, Social and Democratic Center, a clearly “conservative” party.

⁶The political left is here defined as corresponding to Coligação Democrática Unitária (CDU), a coalition having the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) as its most important member, and Bloco de Esquerda, Left Block, stemming from the merger of a number of far left parties. The Socialist Party is taken in this paper as corresponding to center-left.