Attitudes and motivations of Economics students: Some recent evidence

There is disagreement amongst economists regarding whether economics students are more self-interested than other students in economic and non-economic contexts. Econometric analysis of the choice to share in a Prisoner´s Dilemma game suggests that it may not be economics students per se that have a lower probability of choosing share rather than compete, but instead that individuals with attitudes, motivations and values similar to those assumed by standard economic theory have a lower probability of choosing share. The experimental evidence here of 1,701 students suggests that it is the motivations and attitudes of subjects that are important for determining economic choices rather than simply whether the individual studies economics. The results confirm that a higher proportion of economics students have motivations in a game theory context that are similar to those assumed by standard economic theory, yet that their related general attitudes and values are not significantly different. Overall the results suggest that the assumptions of standard economic theory are appropriate for a subset of individuals, and for many individuals who do not study economics

Supertropical matrix algebra III: Powers of matrices and generalized eigenspaces

We investigate powers of supertropical matrices, with special attention to the role of the coefficients of the supertropical characteristic polynomial (especially the supertropical trace) in controlling the rank of a power of a matrix. This leads to a Jordan-type decomposition of supertropical matrices, together with a generalized eigenspace decomposition of a power of an arbitrary supertropical matrix.Comment: 21 page

Are people ethical? An experimental approach

Do ethical motivations and attitudes affect behaviour? We examine this issue in six Prisoner´s Dilemma and Prisoner´s Dilemma related games using an online experiment where individuals were asked to make choices and subsequently to express the motivations for their choices and their general attitudes. The experimental evidence of 1,701 students suggests that the motivations and attitudes of respondents regarding altruism, inequality aversion, reciprocity and aversion to lying are important for determining economic choices as well as self-interest. Econometric analysis of the choice to share indicates that ethical and self-interested motives are more important for determining choices than personal characteristics

Incorporating Ethics into Economics: Problems and Possibilities

In traditional economics the decision-making process for individuals has effectively no role for ethics as individuals are self-interested. The key concepts in economics which determine the role of ethics in the decision-making process are utility, rationality and methodological individualism and hence how these can be and are formulated and combined determines different roles for ethics in economics. Amitai Etzioni, Amartya Sen and John Broome use different definitions of these concepts and hence find different problems and possibilities for a greater role for ethics in economics. This paper integrates the different approaches of these authors and suggests a general mono-utility framework for incorporating ethics into economics whereby the concept of utility requires adaptation