Title: Ethics in economics - not ethics and economics: guidance for researchers

Authors: John B. Davis

Addresses: Department of Economics, Marquette University, USA; Amsterdam School of Economics, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Abstract: This paper discusses how ethical values can be incorporated in empirical research. It shows for mainstream economics the relationship between ethics and economics excludes ethics from economics and sees this relationship as interdisciplinary - an ethics and economics. I argue it should be seen as multidisciplinary - an ethics in economics. The mainstream regards ethical values as subjective. But there is considerable factual evidence about what people's ethical values are. One influential source is the decades of accumulated survey research in the World Values Survey. The paper discusses two ways researchers can incorporate evidence about values in their empirical work. First, drawing from stratification economics, they can identify ethical values overlooked by the mainstream in discriminatory employment settings. Second, experiments-based research can identify ethical values people employ in different market settings. The paper concludes with brief discussion of how for a multidisciplinary ethics in economics ethics can affect future economics.

Keywords: ethics; economics; mainstream economics; World Values Survey; stratification economics; experimental research; future economics.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPEE.2026.152992

International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education, 2026 Vol.16 No.1, pp.1 - 11

Received: 21 Dec 2024
Accepted: 15 Jul 2025
Published online: 17 Apr 2026 *

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