Public Discourse and Socially Responsible Market Behavior

We investigate the causal impact of public discourse on socially responsible market behavior. Across three laboratory experiments, having market participants engage in public discourse generally increases market social responsibility. These positive impacts are robust to variation in several characteristics of the discourse and appear to be partly driven by strengthening beliefs that others support socially responsible exchange. However, relaxing requirements to engage in discourse sharply reduces its effectiveness. Our findings suggest that campaigns encouraging discussion of appropriate market behavior can have powerful impacts on addressing inefficiencies due to market failures, but that policies encouraging broad public engagement may be important.

Keywords: Public discourse, market failure, externalities, social responsibility, experiment, communication

JEL Classification: C92, D62, D83, M14

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Bartling, Björn and Valero, Vanessa and Weber, Roberto A. and Yao, Lan, Public Discourse and Socially Responsible Market Behavior (July 30, 2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3677968 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3677968