I’ve been reading this paper by Zingales, Guiso, and Sapienza (HT Calculated Risk) on the decision by homeowners to default on their mortgages. I should have more to say on the substantive results later, but for now I found this quote amusing:
“Finally, we do not find any difference in the moral view of Republicans and Democrats. The less moral ones are the Independents.”
As a registered independent who has defaulted on a dozen or so home loans this year for the sheer pleasure of it, I can attest to the truth of this.
In all seriousness though, I wonder if the supposed immorality of independents is born out by other survey results, or is the correlation being driven by some excluded variable? Paging Andrew Gelman….
4 comments
Comments feed for this article
Sunday ~ November 22nd, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Levi
Isn’t there a common finding that people who identify as ‘Independent’ are dumber on average than those who identify as ‘Republican’ or ‘Democrat’? So intelligence seems like a probable confound (a brief lit search found some association between intelligence and altruism).
Millet, K. & Dewitte, S. (2006). Altruistic behavior as a costly signal of general intelligence. Journal of Research in Personality, 41, 316-326.
Eisenberg-Berg, N. (1979). Relationship of prosocial moral reasoning to altruism, political liberalism, and intelligence. Developmental Psychology, 15-87-89.
Sunday ~ November 22nd, 2009 at 7:12 pm
RickRussellTX
Are you taking this statement out of context? It seems to be there is a difference between saying, “independents are less moral overall” and “independents are less likely to cite moral reasons as a basis to avoid strategic default”.
It strikes me that, in context, the paper is making the latter statement, not the former. Maybe the independents are just realists, and attach less moral content to the decision. It doesn’t make them less moral generally, just less moral about this financial transaction.
In my mind, the decision to default actually *has* no moral content. The actions and consequences of the contract are well-defined and there is no basis for claiming that one solution is objectively “good” or “bad”. I understood the risk I was taking when I signed the loan, and the banks understood their risk. At any given time, I’ll make the decision that has the highest Net Present Value for me, just as the bank will do precisely the same with their copy of the loan paper.
Monday ~ November 23rd, 2009 at 8:09 am
Adam Ozimek
RickRussellTX,
Let’s test the hypothesis on a sample of one. Are you an independent?
Sunday ~ November 22nd, 2009 at 7:12 pm
RickRussellTX
err , “seems to me” I meant to say.