Abstract
In the last thirty years, economists and other social scientists have investigated people’s normative views on distributive justice. Here we study people’s normative views in social dilemmas, which underlie many situations of economic and social significance. Using insights from moral philosophy and psychology we provide an analysis of the morality of free riding. We use experimental survey methods to investigate people’s moral judgments empirically. We vary others’ contributions, the framing (“give-some” vs. “take-some”) and whether contributions are simultaneous or sequential. We find that moral judgments of a free rider depend strongly on others’ behaviour; and that failing to give is condemned more strongly than withdrawing all support.
Download the paper in PDF format
Now published in Journal of Public Economics, 3(4), April 2011, 253-264
Authors
, Michalis Drouvelis, and Ruslan Kabalin
View all CeDEx discussion papers | View all School of Economics featured discussion papers
Posted on Friday 1st October 2010