¿Estudiar Economía te Hace más Egoísta?

Caffera, Marcelo and Zipitría, Leandro and Arboleya, Lucila (2010): ¿Estudiar Economía te Hace más Egoísta?

Abstract

We present students of different careers from the University of Montevideo (Uruguay) to a hypothetical situation in which, as vice-president of a company, have to make a decision that involves a trade-off between economic benefits and number of employees fired. The paper is a replica of the survey conducted by Rubinstein (2006). Our results do not allow us to reject the hypothesis that students who choose to study economics are more geared to maximizing benefits prior to entry to university, against the alternative of "Indoctrination", whereby students just decide to maximize profits after exposure to economic theory.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• English Title: Studying Economics make you more Selfish?
• Language: Spanish
• Keywords: Selfishness, experiments, indoctrination
• Subjects: A - General Economics and Teaching > A2 - Economic Education and Teaching of Economics > A20 - General; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C9 - Design of Experiments > C93 - Field Experiments

References

Frey, Bruno S., Werner W. Pommerehne and Beat Gygi (1993): “Economics Indoctrination or Selection? Some Empirical Results”, Journal of Economic Education, Vol. 24, verano, págs. 271-81.

Frey, Bruno and Stephan Meier (2003): “Are Political Economists Selfish and Indoctrinated? Evidence from a Natural Experiment,” Economic Inquiry, Oxford University Press, vol. 41(3), julio, págs. 448-462.

Frey, Bruno and Stephan Meier (2005): “Selfish and Indoctrinated Economists?”, European Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 19, N° 2, abril, págs. 165-171.

Rubinstein, Ariel (2006): “A sceptic’s comment on the studies of economics”, Economic Journal, Vol. 116, No. 510, marzo, págs. C1-C9.