Seniority: A Blessing or A Curse? The Effect of Economics Training on the Perception of Distributive Justice

This paper examines the impact of the level of economics knowledge on the perception of equity in a Rawlsian sense when distributional issues are of concern to the students at different stages of their education. The purpose is to question the widely held belief that economics teaching has an influence on ethical views of individuals. To examine the relationship between fairness judgments and the level of the economics education, I use a survey-type experimental design, originally developed by Gaertner (1992), in which six different situations are investigated. By carrying out the questionnaire survey among both undergraduate and graduate students of public finance, I find that a clear learning effect does not exist. However, on the other hand, I cannot conclude against the indoctrination hypothesis in favor of the self-selection hypothesis; because the study seeks only to achieve a better understanding of the learning effect. Moreover, my results suggest that personal features, parental background and future income expectations of the students are mostly not strong variables enough to affect the response patterns.