Every Book You Take: Evaluating Compliance Behavior in an Information Commons

Albergaria, Matheus

doi:10.1590/1980-53575141mam

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Estudos Econômicos (São Paulo)

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Artigo de Pesquisa • Estud. Econ. 51 (04) • Oct-Dec 2021 • https://doi.org/10.1590/1980-53575141mam copy

Every Book You Take: Evaluating Compliance Behavior in an Information Commons^♦ ♦ I thank the Editor, Dante Mendes Aldrighi, as well as three anonymous referees, for detailed comments and suggestions that greatly improved the paper. I also thank the comments from Fernando Postali, Gilberto Tadeu Lima, Gílson Geraldino Jr., Ivam Ricardo Peleias, Marcos Poplawski-Ribeiro, Maria Sylvia Saes, Vitor Nasu, and seminar participants at the 25th Annual Conference of the Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics (SIOE), Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV), and Universidade de São Paulo (USP). All remaining errors are my own.

Authorship SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

Abstract

There has been a heated debate related to the effects of business background on ethical behavior. According to some authors, students majoring in business courses - such as accounting, economics, and management - would be more likely to free ride or defect from coalitions in collective action situations, given the emphasis of such courses on individualistic values. Other authors have challenged that view, presenting empirical evidence that questions the link between business education and opportunistic behavior. The present paper revisits this debate, by studying the impact of business education on rule compliance in a specific type of information commons (libraries). Employing a novel dataset related to more than 700,000 library transactions during a 10-year period (2006-2015), I correlate business background with users’ compliance behavior, while controlling for their time-invariant characteristics. I find no evidence of a significant effect of business education on rule compliance in this specific setting. In fact, some of the estimates here reported suggest a negative correlation between business background and compliance behavior. These results have important implications for ethical theories in economics, suggesting that compliance behavior is context-dependent.

Keywords:
Business ethics; Economists’ behavior; Information Commons; Organizational behavior; Rule compliance

USER CATEGORY	Item Counts	Loan Days	Sanction Type
High School Student	5	7	Fine
Undergraduate Student	5	7	Fine
Master’s Student	7	15	Fine
MBA Student	5	7	Fine
Former Student	2	7	Fine
University Employee	3	7	Daily Suspension
Professor	7	15	Daily Suspension

Sample Variable	Total		Business		Non-business
Sample Variable	Mean	Std.Dev.	Mean	Std.Dev.	Mean	Std.Dev.
Business	0.83	0.38	1.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Female	0.53	0.50	0.51	0.50	0.68	0.47
Scholarship	0.37	0.48	0.36	0.48	0.42	0.49
18 to 23 years	0.44	0.50	0.43	0.50	0.50	0.50
24 to 30 years	0.33	0.47	0.35	0.48	0.23	0.42
31 to 40 years	0.15	0.36	0.15	0.36	0.12	0.33
41 to 50 years	0.05	0.21	0.05	0.21	0.03	0.18
51 to 60 years	0.01	0.12	0.01	0.11	0.01	0.12
60+ years	0.00	0.04	0.00	0.04	0.00	0.06
0 to 4 years in College	0.89	0.31	0.91	0.28	0.86	0.35
Delays	1.42	8.16	1.40	7.56	1.51	10.69
Frequency (Delays)	0.40	0.49	0.40	0.49	0.39	0.49
Loans’ Effective Duration	7.42	8.89	7.36	8.25	7.33	11.4
Arts and Recreation Books	0.02	0.15	0.02	0.12	0.06	0.23
History and Geography Books	0.01	0.11	0.01	0.09	0.04	0.19
Language Books	0.02	0.14	0.01	0.12	0.05	0.21
Literature Books	0.04	0.19	0.03	0.16	0.10	0.30
Philosophy and Psychology Books	0.02	0.16	0.02	0.15	0.03	0.16
Religion Books	0.00	0.02	0.00	0.02	0.00	0.04
Science Books	0.08	0.27	0.08	0.27	0.06	0.24
Social Science Books	0.28	0.45	0.27	0.45	0.33	0.47
Technology Books	0.48	0.50	0.52	0.50	0.31	0.46
Observations	723,171		592,675		122,946

VARIABLES	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)
VARIABLES	Delays (OLS)	Delays (OLS)	Delays (OLS)	Delays (OLS)	Delays (OLS)
Business	0.01	-0.01	-0.02*	-0.02*	-0.03**
	(0.012)	(0.013)	(0.013)	(0.013)	(0.013)
Monetary Fine	0.01***	0.01***	0.01***	0.01***	0.01***
	(0.004)	(0.004)	(0.004)	(0.004)	(0.004)
Daily Suspension	-0.00***	-0.00***	-0.00	-0.00	0.00
	(0.000)	(0.000)	(0.000)	(0.000)	(0.000)
User Dummies	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Library Dummies	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Book Dummies	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Months x Years	No	No	No	No	Yes
Observations	715,621	715,621	714,646	714,646	714,646
Adj. R-squared	0.0450	0.0501	0.0542	0.0542	0.114

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
VARIABLES	Freq(Late)	Freq(Late)	Early	Early
Business	-0.05*	-0.15	0.06	0.16
	(0.032)	(0.102)	(0.043)	(0.131)
Freshmen	-0.18***	-0.30***	0.18***	0.32**
	(0.042)	(0.108)	(0.052)	(0.139)
Seniors	-0.09***	-0.16	0.08**	0.12
	(0.028)	(0.095)	(0.035)	(0.122)
Main Stage	-0.13***	-0.22**	0.13***	0.22*
	(0.034)	(0.094)	(0.042)	(0.118)
Freshmen x Business		0.13		-0.15
		(0.102)		(0.131)
Seniors x Business		0.07		-0.04
		(0.095)		(0.120)
Main Stage x Business		0.10		-0.09
		(0.092)		(0.113)
Semesters	-0.05***	-0.05***	0.06***	0.06***
	(0.008)	(0.008)	(0.009)	(0.009)
(Semesters)² 2 I thank an anonymous referee for suggesting the inclusion of references related to the economics of crime in the revised version of the paper. See Chalfin and McCrary (2017), Levitt and Miles (2006), Piehl and Williams (2011), and Polinsky and Shavell (2000) for examples of surveys on the theme.	0.00***	0.00***	-0.00***	-0.00***
	(0.001)	(0.001)	(0.001)	(0.001)
Observations	463,913	463,913	463,913	463,913
Pseudo R-squared	0.0148	0.0149	0.0149	0.0150

VARIABLES	(1) Eff.Duration (OLS)	(2) Early Devolution (Probit)	(3) Freq.(Delays) (Probit)	(4) # Books (Neg.Binomial)	(5) # Fines (Neg.Binomial)	(6) Delays (Poisson)	(7) Delays (Neg.Binomial)	(8) Delays (ZIP)	(9) Delays (ZINB)
Business	-0.01	0.05	-0.05*	-0.02	-0.00	-0.11***	-0.10***	-0.08**	-0.09***
Business	(0.015)	(0.036)	(0.027)	(0.015)	(0.046)	(0.042)	(0.036)	(0.036)	(0.029)
User Dummies	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Library Dummies	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Book Dummies	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Months x Years	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Observations	714,646	714,646	714,646	714,646	714,646	714,646	714,646	714,646	714,646
Adj. R-squared	0.0691
Pseudo R-squared		0.0404	0.0378
Log-Likelihood				1219569.9	-305333.61	-1835523.7	-1045609.5	-1378461	1023675

VARIABLES	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)
VARIABLES	Undergraduates Only	Students Only	Exam Weeks	Holidays (t - 1)	Fridays
Business	-0.02	-0.02	-0.00	-0.04	-0.03
	(0.027)	(0.021)	(0.032)	(0.025)	(0.018)
User Dummies	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Library Dummies	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Book Dummies	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Months x Years	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Observations	474,148	672,133	75,940	7,032	104,304
Adj. R-squared	0.206	0.228	0.250	0.240	0.248

VARIABLES	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)
VARIABLES	Delays (OLS)	Delays (OLS)	Delays (OLS)	Delays (OLS)	Delays (OLS)
Accounting	-0.01	-0.01	-0.01	-0.00	-0.02
	(0.043)	(0.047)	(0.045)	(0.043)	(0.045)
Economics	-0.06	-0.07	-0.07	-0.06	-0.08*
	(0.044)	(0.047)	(0.045)	(0.043)	(0.046)
Management	-0.04	-0.05	-0.05	-0.05	-0.05
	(0.043)	(0.047)	(0.045)	(0.043)	(0.045)
Advertising	0.04	0.04	0.07	0.07	0.07
	(0.045)	(0.049)	(0.048)	(0.046)	(0.048)
Int. Relations	-0.12**	-0.11**	-0.11**	-0.11**	-0.12**
	(0.050)	(0.053)	(0.052)	(0.050)	(0.050)
Secretariat	0.03	0.03	0.03	0.03	0.03
	(0.047)	(0.051)	(0.049)	(0.047)	(0.048)
User Dummies	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Library Dummies	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Book Dummies	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Months x Years	No	No	No	No	Yes
Observations	474,098	474,098	473,513	473,513	473,513
Adj. R-squared	0.00255	0.00579	0.0106	0.0545	0.114

VARIABLES	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)
VARIABLES	Delays (OLS)	Delays (OLS)	Delays (OLS)	Delays (OLS)	Delays (OLS)
Business	-0.03	-0.01	-0.07	-0.14	-0.15
	(0.073)	(0.106)	(0.109)	(0.093)	(0.094)
User Dummies	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Library Dummies	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Book Dummies	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Months x Years	No	No	No	No	Yes
Observations	1,111	1,111	1,107	1,107	1,107
Adj. R-squared	-0.000787	0.0199	0.0389	0.273	0.307

Variable	Difference
Variable	Unmatched Sample	Matched Sample
Female	-0.174***	-0.002
Scholarship	-0.059***	-0.004**
18 to 23 years	-0.0703***	-0.003
24 to 30 years	0.126***	0.000
31 to 40 years	0.028***	-0.001
41 to 50 years	0.013***	0.001*
51 to 60 years	-0.001***	0.001***
60+ years	-0.002***	0.001***
0 to 4 years in College	0.054***	-0.001
Arts and Recreation Books	-0.042***	-0.000
History and Geography Books	-0.029***	0.001*
Language Books	-0.033***	-0.000
Literature Books	-0.069***	0.003***
Philosophy and Psychology Books	-0.003***	-0.000
Religion Books	-0.001***	0.000
Science Books	0.022***	0.004***
Social Science Books	-0.059***	-0.005***
Technology Books	0.205***	-0.002
Library Unit 1	-0.058***	-0.001
Library Unit 3	0.002***	-0.000

VARIABLES	(1)	(2)
VARIABLES	Delays (ATE)	Delays (FE)
Business	-0.17	0.02
	(0.125)	(0.030)
User Dummies	Yes	Yes
Library Dummies	Yes	Yes
Book Dummies	Yes	Yes
Months x Years	Yes	Yes
Observations	667,389	667,389
Adj. R-squared	0.282	0.096

Departamento de Economia; Faculdade de Economia, Administração, Contabilidade e Atuária da Universidade de São Paulo (FEA-USP) Av. Prof. Luciano Gualberto, 908 - FEA 01 - Cid. Universitária, CEP: 05508-010 - São Paulo/SP - Brasil, Tel.: (55 11) 3091-5803/5947 - São Paulo - SP - Brazil
E-mail: estudoseconomicos@usp.br

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[1] Editor Responsável:

Dante Mendes Aldrighi