Behavioral ethics: how psychology influenced economics and how economics might inform psychology?

•Behavioral economists search for alternatives to the economics-of-crime approach.•Dialog among economists/psychologists is most active regarding moral preferences.•Tension of social preferences and exploiting information asymmetries became clearer.•Economists emphasize effects of markets, occupational norms and incentive schemes.

This review surveys recent research developed in behavioral economics on the determinants of unethical behavior. Most recent progress has been made in three directions: the understanding of the importance of moral norms in individual decision-making, the conflicting role of opportunities provided by asymmetries of information and social preferences, and the crucial effect of rules, occupational norms and incentive schemes in the diffusion of dishonesty. The connection between economics and psychology is the most vivid on the first dimension.