Reconnecting Morality with Political Economy

Source details

Canonical URL

Reconnecting Morality with Political Economy

Other formats

• Markdown version
• Structured JSON version
• Bundle manifest

Bibliographic details

• Authors: BENJAMIN ENKE
• Published: March 3, 2025
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjz001

Overview

• Author: BENJAMIN ENKE.
• Publication: F&D Magazine.
• Date: March 2025.
• Core claim: Putting moral insight back into economics enhances understanding of political outcomes by recognizing morality as both shaped by and shaping economic behavior.

Foundational concepts

• Morality as an economically functional tool:
  • Originates from moral psychology (example cited: Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind).
  • Morality enforces cooperation, enabling large-scale production, exchange, and social cohesion.
  • Evolutionary perspective: as societies grew complex, moral systems emerged to sustain cooperative behavior.

• Economic imperialism:
  • Economists apply their tools to domains traditionally studied by other social sciences (psychology, anthropology).
  • When collaborative, this can validate moral-psychology theories through large-scale empirical work.

Mechanisms linking morality and economic environments

• Moral values are adaptable and respond to economic environments:
  • Shift from particularist to universalist moral frameworks can occur with changes like market integration and globalization.
• Key drivers identified:
  • Historical kinship structures:
  • Strong extended family networks → particularist values (loyalty to family/local communities).
  • Looser kinship networks → universalist values (fairness extended to strangers and distant relations).
  • Author’s empirical work: Enke 2019 links kinship to cross-cultural variation in moral beliefs, values, and emotions.
  • Exposure to markets:
  • Greater historical exposure to markets → higher levels of universalism (author’s 2023 paper evidence).
  • Market interactions among strangers foster impersonal cooperation and trust.
  • Ecology:
  • Homogeneous/fertile land requiring intensive neighbor cooperation → particularist values.
  • Variable/fragmented ecological conditions → universalist values (noted reference to Itzchak Tzachi Raz).

Evidence and empirical findings

• Author’s contributions and cited studies:
  • Enke, Benjamin. 2019. “Kinship, Cooperation, and the Evolution of Moral Systems.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 134 (2): 953–1019.
  • Enke, Benjamin. 2020. “Moral Values and Voting.” Journal of Political Economy 128 (10): 3679–729.
  • Enke, Benjamin. 2023. “Market Exposure and Human Morality.” Nature Human Behaviour 7: 134–41.
  • Enke, Benjamin. 2024. “Moral Boundaries.” Annual Review of Economics 16: 133–57.
  • Enke, Benjamin, Raymond Fisman, Luis Mota Freitas, and Steven Sun. 2024. “Universalism and Political Representation: Evidence from the Field.” American Economic Review: Insights 6 (2): 214–29.

• Specific empirical findings summarized:
  • Universalism measurement via donations:
  • US districts considered more universalist when a larger share of donations goes to more distant beneficiaries (geographically or socially).
  • Universalist districts give more to faraway places but less to local community causes—i.e., not more or less prosocial in total, but geographically/ socially redistributed.
  • Political alignment:
  • Districts with higher universalism tend to vote more for Democratic candidates.
  • Representatives from more universalist districts use universalist moral language and exhibit more left-leaning roll-call voting behavior, even within the same party.
  • The moral cleavage (universalist vs particularist) helps explain diverging views on taxation, redistribution, immigration, climate change, globalization, and foreign aid.

Political and economic implications

• Moral values both shape and are shaped by economic conditions; this reciprocity influences political polarization and policy preferences.
• Universalist vs particularist divide:
  • Universalists: favor redistributive policies, globalist policies (foreign aid, globalization, climate change prevention).
  • Particularists: favor in-group loyalty, oppose redistribution perceived to benefit out-groups, oppose immigration that may harm local job prospects.
• Implications for representation:
  • Moral orientation of voters aligns with candidate rhetoric and policy choices, affecting electoral and legislative outcomes.

Interdisciplinary approach and methodological recommendations

• Economists and moral psychologists should engage collaboratively:
  • Economists contribute large-scale data analysis and empirical testing.
  • Moral psychologists contribute theory on individual moral reasoning and decision processes.
• Combining disciplines offers richer explanations for phenomena like redistribution preferences and voting behavior.

Policy recommendations and practical guidance for policymakers

• Recognize moral heterogeneity:
  • Effective economic policy cannot ignore moral considerations; people’s economic preferences are shaped by moral beliefs that vary across groups.
• Policy design and framing:
  • Craft redistributive policies that resonate across moral divides—e.g., frame universalist policies to emphasize local-community benefits to appeal to particularists.
• Anticipate and address polarization:
  • Understanding moral divisions can help policymakers anticipate resistance and design communication and policies to bridge divides and build consensus.

IMF F&D Magazine, March 2025. BENJAMIN ENKE.

Content in this bundle

• Putting Moral Insight Back Into Economics Enhances Understanding of Political Outcomes
  • Putting Moral Insight Back Into Economics Enhances Understanding of Political Outcomes (Markdown version)
  • Putting Moral Insight Back Into Economics Enhances Understanding of Political Outcomes (PDF)