TY  - SER
AU  - Bartling, Bjorn
AU  -  Valero, Vanessa
AU  -  Weber, Roberto A.
AU  -  Yao, Lan
TI  - Public Discourse and Socially Responsible Market Behavior
SN  - 0002-8282
PB  - American Economic Review
KW  -  Communication
KW  -  Consumer Economics
KW  -  Education and Training
KW  -  Micro-Based Behavioral Economics
KW  -  Social Responsibility
KW  - Economic Sociology
N2  - We investigate the causal impact of public discourse on socially responsible market behavior. Across three laboratory experiments, having market participants engage in public discourse generally increases market social responsibility. These positive impacts are robust to variation in several characteristics of the discourse. We provide evidence that discourse strengthens beliefs that others support socially responsible exchange. However, relaxing requirements to engage in discourse sharply reduces its effectiveness. Our findings suggest that campaigns encouraging discussion of appropriate market behavior can have sizable impacts on addressing inefficiencies due to market failures but that policies encouraging broad public engagement may be important
UR  - https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20201361
ER  -