1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910828126903321

Autore

Bowles Samuel

Titolo

The Moral Economy : Why Good Incentives Are No Substitute for Good Citizens / / Samuel Bowles

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New Haven, CT : , : Yale University Press, , [2016]

©2016

ISBN

9780300221084 (e-book)

9780300163803 (hbk.)

9780300230512 (pbk.)

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (289 p.)

Collana

Castle Lecture Series

Classificazione

CC 7262

Disciplina

174.4

Soggetti

Economics - Moral and ethical aspects

Law and economics

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Preface -- I. The Problem with Homo economicus -- II. A Constitution for Knaves -- III. Moral Sentiments and Material Interests -- IV. Incentives as Information -- V. A Liberal Civic Culture -- VI. The Legislator's Dilemma -- VII. A Mandate for Aristotle's Legislator -- APPENDIX 1. A Taxonomy of Additive Separability and Its Violations -- APPENDIX 2. Experimental Games Measuring Social Preferences and the Effects of Incentives -- APPENDIX 3. Total, Direct, and Indirect Effects of the Subsidy in the Irlenbusch and Ruchala (2008) Experiment -- APPENDIX 4. Trust and the Liberal Rule of Law -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Why do policies and business practices that ignore the moral and generous side of human nature often fail? Should the idea of economic man-the amoral and self-interested Homo economicus-determine how we expect people to respond to monetary rewards, punishments, and other incentives? Samuel Bowles answers with a resounding "no." Policies that follow from this paradigm, he shows, may "crowd out" ethical and generous motives and thus backfire.   But incentives per se are not really the culprit. Bowles shows that crowding out occurs when the message conveyed by fines and rewards is that self-interest is



expected, that the employer thinks the workforce is lazy, or that the citizen cannot otherwise be trusted to contribute to the public good. Using historical and recent case studies as well as behavioral experiments, Bowles shows how well-designed incentives can crowd in the civic motives on which good governance depends.