Aims & Scope

The objective of this project is to explore the effects of market mechanisms and various societal institutions on people’s “public moral” or “moral” behavior using laboratory and field experimental approaches. Our project also focuses attention on the differences of these effects based on geographical areas and cultural backgrounds and then suggests the optimal societal institution to improve society’s moral behavior. Throughout this research project, we attempt to make a social and academic contribution to the fields of humanities and social science.

Awareness of the Issues

When several people get together, they organize a group, spontaneously create their own unique culture, and foster social norms and public moral behavior shared by the group members. This gathering eventually evolves into the formation of a “society.” In a well-formed society, the market system, economic and social institutions, and society-oriented customs are subsequently established, which facilitates business and community activities under established rules. Conversely, the market system and economic and social institutions arise spontaneously at first, and they subsequently determine the social norms and public moral behaviors shared by people, which eventually leads to the formation of a society. The association between the economic and social institutions and people’s moral behavior is mutually dependent and differs by cultural background. Exploring the dynamic evolution and formation of society is one of the most important tasks to be considered in the field of humanities and social science in which “humans, cultures, and society” is the main subject of study. It is necessary for researchers to identify appropriate social systems and institutions that enhance people’s respect for social norms and public moral behavior from a policy-making perspective as well as from an academic perspective. By doing so, we can reduce the social risk of the promotion of fraudulent behaviors due to a lack of morals and the disaster risk in which people do not make considerable contributions to improving a disaster-prevention system in communities that have succumbed to moral hazards. Our mission is to suggest policy implications to build an intellectual and mature society and then overcome these risks.

Multidisciplinary Perspective

Many policy makers and academic researchers have paid attention to the association between economic and social institutions and the extent of public moral behavior. The Government of Japan’s Cabinet Office recently announced its support for the “New Public Common,” which will build a society sustained by its mutual assistance in serving public goods and services. A local administrative agency usually levies a residence tax from local residents and provides public goods and services to the residents. The idea of the New Public Common is that local residents can fulfill both roles in serving and receiving public goods and services. The local administrative agency transfers its authority of serving public goods and services to specific groups of residents, such as nonprofit organizations (NPOs) and nongovernment organizations (NGOs), and creates an environment where transactions of public goods and services are made actively and efficiently. All the local administrative agency has to do is to maintain good environmental conditions. The prerequisite condition to establishing a society that embodies the concept of the New Public Common is that people must have a high moral character. Throughout this research project, we suggest how to establish the institutions that develop people of high moral character, which allows us to form a society embodying the concept of the New Public Common. In addition, our project compares the institutional and cultural effects on people’s moral behavior in Japan and the Philippines.

The main feature of this research project is to focus particular attention on “social norms” and “public moral behavior,” which have not necessarily been explored in economics research. The limited literature has described an association between economic institutions and social norms or public moral behavior. However, this issue is also important from the perspectives of behavioral science and psychology. Therefore, we will use an interdisciplinary approach to address this issue. We are convinced that our research project contributes to the development of humanities and social science.