Of morals, markets and mice: Be careful drawing policy conclusions from experimental findings!

- Falk and Szech conclude from their mice experiment that “markets erode moral values”.
- We demonstrate that the claim made by Falk and Szech is unfounded.
- Their experimental results can be interpreted in the opposite way.
- We mainly differ in which treatment represents a (more) typical market situation.

Sometimes experimentalists draw far-reaching policy conclusions from their findings. However, this is dangerous if there is ambiguity with respect to the right interpretation of the results. A good example for this danger is the well-known study by Falk and Szech (Science, 2013), who conclude that “markets erode moral values”. If this were true, economists, who have emphasized the efficiency enhancing effects of markets for centuries, would have to reconsider their judgments fundamentally. In this note we demonstrate that the claim made by Falk and Szech is unfounded for at least four reasons and that their experimental results can be (and should be) interpreted, if anything, in the opposite way.