Not Guilty? Another Look at the Nature and Nurture of Economics Students

University of the Federal Armed Forces Economics Working Paper No. 8

14 Pages Posted: 18 Aug 2003

See all articles by Justus Haucap

Justus Haucap

Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf - Department of Economics; German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin)

Tobias Just

Deutsche Bank AG - Research Division

Date Written: May 2003

Abstract

In this paper, we examine students' attitudes towards various allocation mechanisms for a scarce resource. For this purpose, we have run a survey among officers of the German military who are enrolled in different courses of study (such as economics) at the University of the German Federal Armed Forces. We find that significantly more economics than non-economics students judge price increases as fair. Moreover, this tendency strengthens as economics students advance in their studies. In addition, fewer advanced economics students judge allocation through the local community as fair when compared to first-year economists or other students. These results stand in contrast to results obtained by Frey, Pommerehne and Gygi (1993) on exactly the same survey. In summary, we find evidence for both nature and nurture effects.

Keywords: Economists, fairness, learning, selection, attitudes

JEL Classification: A12, A13, A20, D63

Suggested Citation

Haucap, Justus and Haucap, Justus and Just, Tobias, Not Guilty? Another Look at the Nature and Nurture of Economics Students (May 2003). University of the Federal Armed Forces Economics Working Paper No. 8, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=421400 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.421400

Justus Haucap (Contact Author)

Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf - Department of Economics ( email )

Duesseldorf
Germany

HOME PAGE: http://www.dice.uni-duesseldorf.de

German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) ( email )

Mohrenstraße 58
Berlin, 10117
Germany

Tobias Just

Deutsche Bank AG - Research Division ( email )

Department of Economics
Grosse Gallusstr. 10-14
Frankfurt 60311
Germany
+49 69 910 31743 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: www.dbresearch.de

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