Of mice and men

31 May 2013 By Olaf Storbeck

Economists may love the free market, but mice should avoid it. A study shows that people value a creature’s life less when markets take the place of individual consciences. A fistful of euros can be harmful. Unfettered capitalism has hidden moral costs.

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Behavioural economists Armin Falk or the University of Bonn and Nora Szech of the University of Bamberg conducted a series of experiments in Bonn to study the effect of market interactions on moral values. In some, volunteers were asked to choose between saving the life of a mouse and receiving 10 euros. In others, a market for “mouse-lives” was established.
The economists used so-called “surplus” mice for their experiment, which would ordinarily have been killed because they cannot be used for research. The economists noted in an article in the magazine Science that, “mice that were chosen to survive because subjects’ decisions were purchased by the experimenters and kept in an appropriate, enriched environment … As a consequence of our experiment, many mice that would have otherwise have been killed right away were allowed to live for roughly two years.”

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