Market Participation and Moral Decision-Making: Experimental Evidence from Greenland

• Published in: The Economic Journal
• Main Authors: Agneman, Gustav, Chevrot-Bianco, Esther
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford University Press (OUP) 2022
• Subjects: Greenland
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/ueac069; https://academic.oup.com/ej/advance-article-pdf/doi/10.1093/ej/ueac069/47161699/ueac069.pdf; https://academic.oup.com/ej/article-pdf/133/650/537/51840086/ueac069.pdf

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.