The Virtue of Business: How Markets Encourage Ethical Behavior

Originally published in Journal of Markets & Morality

Popular media is filled with claims about the immorality of the marketplace and businessmen. In this article, we question these claims.

Popular media is filled with claims about the immorality of the marketplace and businessmen. In this article, we question these claims. Because individuals as consumers want to support ethical behavior,individuals are ethical, markets will tend to enhance, rather than retard, ethical behavior. The enhancement is carried out by ethical entrepreneurs who change and influence the way that business practices are carried out. We illustrate our argument with the examples of Barnum & Bailey Circus, Whole Foods Market, and BB&T Bank.

Find article at the Journal of Markets & Morality.

To speak with a scholar or learn more on this topic, visit our contact page.

Mercatus AI Assistant
Ask questions about this research.
GPT Logo
Mercatus AI Research Assistant
Ask questions about this research. Mercatus Chatbot AI More Details
Suggested Prompts:
Ask us anything. We use OpenAI's ChatGPT 4o base model to answer any question about Mercatus research.