Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP9522
Authors: Armin Falk; Nora Szech
Abstract: This paper studies how organizational design affects moral outcomes. Subjects face the decision to either kill mice for money or to save mice. We compare a Baseline treatment where subjects are fully pivotal to a Diffused-Pivotality treatment where subjects simultaneously choose in groups of eight. In the latter condition eight mice are killed if at least one subject opts for killing. The fraction of subjects deciding to kill is higher when pivotality is diffused. The likelihood of killing is monotone in subjective perceptions of pivotality. On an aggregate level many more mice are killed in Diffused-Pivotality than Baseline.
Keywords: experiment; morality; organization; pivotality
JEL Codes: C91; D01; D03; D23; D63
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| perceptions of pivotality (F01) | likelihood of killing (J17) |
| diffused pivotality (D52) | increase in immoral outcomes (A13) |