ECONOMICS students are less interested in protecting the environment or helping the poor than students of other subjects. The future economist is instead mostly interested in gaining power and influence, making money and having a good time.
This picture of economists as amoral and acquisitive emerges from a survey comparing the values and motives of 199 economics students with 165 students of other subjects (Centre for Economic Policy Research Discussion Paper 3660). Sonia Roccas of the Open University of Israel and Neil Gandal of Tel Aviv University say economists are “less concerned with the welfare of people with whom they…
