B8183 - MORALITY AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR

Learning outcomes

At the end of this course students are aware and are able to understand the ethical and strategic implications, complexity and dilemmas of corporate responsibility and sustainability. They learn about motivations in markets, ethics of individual actions and their effect in societies and the tensions between markets and distributive justice.

Course contents

Schedule of topics

1. The nature of moral agency. Modes of agency. A social cognitive theory of morality.

2. A comparison of different ethical theories: utilitarianism, deontologism, vrtue ethics.

3. Neuroethics and the corporate world. The corporation as a moral agent. Is business ethics, as it is understood today, adequate to meet present-day challenges?

4. Finance, arbitrage and ethics. The ethical limits of arbitrage and its regulations.

5. The legislator's dilemma. A mandate for Aristotle's Legislator.

6. Is bribery without a remedy? The forgotten law of lobbying. The anticorruption principle and the working of competitive markets.

7. Artificial Intelligence and cooperative behaviour. How to design an algorethics?

8. The inclusive capitalism project: meaning and possibilities of realization.

9. Political Economy versus Civil Economy: a comparison of two scientific economic paradigms.

10. War in a time of globalization: the moral underpinnings of a peace-building strategy. "Si vis pacem para bellum" approach versus "Si vis pacem para civitatem" approach.

Readings/Bibliography

Abada I. et Al. (2023), “AI: Can Seemingly Collusive Outcomes Be Avoided?”, Management Science.

Acemoglu A. (2024), The Simple Macroeconomics of AI, NBER, 32487, May

Bandura A. (2016), Moral Disengagement, New York, MacMillan

Barrera A. (2024), Compassion-Justice Conflicts, CUP

Bowles S. (2016), The Moral Economy, New Haven, Yale University Press

Bruni L., S. Zamagni (2017), Civil Economy, London, Agenda

Calvano E. et Al. (2020), “AI, Algorithmic Pricing and Collusion”, American Economic Review, 110

Carr A. (1968), “Is Businnes Buffling Ethical?”, Harvard Businnes Review, XI

Falck A., N. Szech (2013), “Morals and Markets”, Science, pp. 707-712

Frey C.B. (2019), The Technology Trap. Capital, Labour and Power in the Age of Automation, Princeton, Princeton University Press

Goldberg P., T. Reed (2023), Is the Global Economy Deglobalizing?, Brookings Papers, March

Guzman M, J. Stiglitz (2024), Post-neoliberal Globalization, NBER, 32533.

Heckman et Al. (2023), The Economic Approach to Personality, Character and Virtue, NBER, 31258

Henderson R. (2020), Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire, New York, Public Affairs

Kasberger B. e. Al. (2024), Algorithmic Cooperation, Cesifo Wp 11124, May

Mittermeier K. (2020), The Hand Behind the Invisible Hand, Bristol, Bristol University Press

O’Hara M. (2016), Something for Nothing. Arbitrage and Ethics on Wall Street, New York, Norton

Oreskes N., E. Conway 2023), The Big Myth, New York, Bloomsberry Pub.

Pistor K. (2019), The Code of Capital. How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality, Princeton, PUP

Rajan R., L. Zingales (2023), What Purpose Do Corporations Purport?, Europe Corporate Governance Institute, WP 904

Robeyns I., Limitarianism. The case against extreme wealth, Routledge, 2025

Rhodes C. (2022), Woke Capitalism, Bristol, Bristol University Press

Rona P., L. Zsolnai (eds.) (2017), Economics as a Moral Science, Berlin, Springer

Stiglitz J. (2024), The Road to Freedom, New York, Allen Lane

Sunstein C.R. (2021), Liars. Falsehoods and Free Speech in an Age of Deception, Oxford, OUP

Van Staveren I. (2007), “Beyond Utilitarianism and Deontology”, Review of Political Economy, 19

Wilber C. (2021), Was the Good Samaritan a Bad Economist?, New York, Lexington Books

Zamagni S., (2018) “The Idea of CSR and the Responses of Economic Theory”, in L. Bouchaert et Al. (eds.), Art, Spirituality, Economics, Berlin, Springer

Zamagni S. (2026), "On the re-emergence of the civil economy pardigm in economic research", International Review of Economics, 73

Teaching methods

Lectures and in class discussions

Assessment methods

As far as the assessment of learning - consisting of a paper of about 7000 words -, a limited use of AI is allowed for activities of support (bibliography, summaries, checking of exposition), but not for the articulation of arguments. A declaration of the use must be included at the end of the paper, which must focus on a topic freely chosen by the student among those dealt with during the course, to be sent to the teacher no later than September 30, 2027. The teacher will respond to each student with his remarks. The format of the paper is the standard one: Introduction; Review of the relevant literature; Personal critical assessment; Future Research; Bibliography

Students are advised that the present course is a PASS/FAIL one. The PASS evaluation can never be translated into a numerical grade in the official transcript of records.

Office hours

See the website of Stefano Zamagni