Is a Moral Disposition Rewarded?

Abstract

This paper explores the conditions under which a moral disposition is rewarded, in the sense of moral people being more prosperous than amoral people. The analytical framework is a general equilibrium model in which production is more lucrative for moral people than for amoral people, but in which amoral people can choose to be predators rather than producers. We find that, regardless of the advantage that moral people have in production, a moral disposition is rewarded if and only if the ratio of amoral people to moral people is large relative to a parameter of the technology of predation.

Keywords: Amoral, Moral, Predator, Prosperity

JEL Classification: A13, D63, D74