Noble be man, helpful and good!...

... For that alone sets him apart from every other creature on earth.” With these words, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe entreats us to behave morally. Although many of us affirm this adage, we achieve this goal only to varying extents. Social research also suggests that the institutions in which we make our decisions affect our moral behaviour, rendering moral action more or less attractive. These topics were addressed in the CES Lectures of Nora Szech entitled “Morals and Institutions”.

Ms Szech has studied the impact of different institutions, like markets or committees, on moral behaviour, as well as the influence of individual characteristics (such as having siblings, male or female) on moral decision-making. With her background in game theory, market design and experiments, she analyses institutions and their impacts on values and behaviour empirically and theoretically.

Her paper “Morals and Markets” (together with Armin Falk) appeared in Science last year. The results of their research suggest that markets can cause moral transgression, increasing the willingness to harm third parties for naively selfish reasons. The paper met with considerable public interest, showing that the question of where markets are appropriate – and in which form – are deemed important by many people.

Nora Szech is Full Professor, Chair of Political Economics, at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and Fellow of the WZB Berlin Social Science Center. She received her doctorate from Bonn University under the supervision of Benny Moldovanu. In 2012 and 2013, she was Professor of Industrial Economics at the University of Bamberg.