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The morality of markets. A critique

Author

Listed:
  • Grégory Ponthière

    (CREM - Centre de recherche en économie et management - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - UR - Université de Rennes - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Global Labor Organization)

  • Nicolas Stevens

    (CORE - Center of Operation Research and Econometrics [Louvain] - UCL - Université Catholique de Louvain = Catholic University of Louvain)

Abstract

Dewatripont and Tirole (2024) defend the morality of markets on the ground of an irrelevance result: the social production of moral actions is independent from competitive pressure on markets. No matter how strong competitive pressure is, markets perform well in diffusing signals about moral values and in coordinating suppliers of moral actions. In this article, we argue, on the contrary, that markets lead to a double crowding out of moral values: first, imperfect transmission of moral values on markets leads to an underproduction of moral actions despite the presence of highly ethical suppliers; second, competitive pressure on markets favors the eviction of highly ethical suppliers by less ethical suppliers. Furthermore, we highlight that this double crowding-out restricts the normative scope of the irrelevance result, and raises the question of what the division of moral labor should be between citizens, firms and States.

Suggested Citation

  • Grégory Ponthière & Nicolas Stevens, 2024. "The morality of markets. A critique," Post-Print hal-04940873, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04940873
    DOI: 10.1016/j.mathsocsci.2024.12.003
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-04940873v1
    as

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