Are economists different? economic model vs. reality.

Abstract

One of the key assumptions of neoclassical economics is the existence of the rational individual, who always tries to maximize his or her utility. The paper shows possibilities of experimental evaluation of this hypothesis with respect to the various groups of people who undertake the experiment. Our experiments try to (1) Evaluate real outcomes of model situations, and (2) Find differences between various groups of treated people with respect to our main research question -whether economists behave more selfishly than any other group of people. We employed game theory and its fundamental models - Prisoner's dilemma and Ultimate and Dictator Games. In accordance to previous foreign experiments, we conclude that in real situations people behave in a much less self-interested way than predicted by the economic model. In situations favouring free-riding, people voluntarily contributed to public goods. According to the results of our experiments, the hypothesis that economists are more likely to act for their own self interest cannot be rejected. In both experiments economists behaved in a self interested way, but these results were not prevailing.