American Economic Review Vol. 114 No. 10 2024

Public Discourse and Socially Responsible Market Behavior

Björn Bartling¹; Vanessa Valero²; Roberto A. Weber¹; Lan Yao³

¹ Department of Economics, University of Zurich (email: ) · ² School of Business, University of Leicester, and IMT-BS (email: ) · ³ School of Economics and Dishui Advanced Finance Institute, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (email: )

Abstract

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. We provide evidence that discourse strengthens 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 sizable impacts on addressing inefficiencies due to market failures but that policies encouraging broad public engagement may be important.

DOI

10.1257/aer.20201361

Volume

114

Issue

10

Pages

3041-3074

Language

en

Sources

bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

Cite

APA 7 MLA 9 Chicago (author–date) Harvard Elsevier Harvard (JFE, JBF…) The Accounting Review Academy of Management American Marketing Association INFORMS (Management Science) Copy citation Copied ✓