Culture, humanities & social science
The Price of Our Values: The Economic Limits of Moral Life
By David Thesmar, the Franco Modigliani Professor of Financial Economics and professor of finance, and Augustin Landier
University of Chicago Press · 2025
Two economists examine the interplay between our desire to be good, the personal costs of being good, and the point at which people abandon goodness due to its costs. Aided by the results of two surveys, they find that the answers to modern moral dilemmas are economic, and often highly predictable. Our values may guide us, but we are also forced to consider economic costs to settle decisions.
From Summer 2025 recommended reading from MIT (MIT News). Cover image via Google Books.
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