- Docente: Stefano Zamagni
- Credits: 4
- Language: English
- Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
- Campus: Bologna
- Corso: First cycle degree programme (L) in Economics and Finance (cod. 8835)
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from Feb 10, 2025 to Mar 17, 2025
Learning outcomes
At the end of this course students are aware and are able to understand the ethical and strategic implications, complexity and dilemmas of corporate responsibility and sustainability. They learn about motivations in markets, ethics of individual actions and their effect in societies and the tensions between markets and distributive justice.
Course contents
Schedule of topics
1. The nature of moral agency. Modes of agency. A social cognitive theory of morality.
2. A comparison of different ethical theories: utilitarianism, deontologism, vrtue ethics.
3. Neuroethics and the corporate world. The corporation as a moral agent. Is business ethics as it is understood today adequate?
4. Finance, arbitrage and ethics. The ethical limits of arbitrage. Arbitraging regulatory and market structures.
5. The legislator's dilemma. A mandate for Aristotle's Legislator.
6. Is bribery without a remedy? The forgotten law of lobbying. The anticorruption principle and the working of competitive markets.
7. Artificial Intelligence and cooperative behaviour. How to design an algorethics?
8. The inclusive capitalism project: meaning and possibilities of realization.
9. Political Economy versus Civil Economy: a comparison of two economic paradigms.
10. War in a time of globalization: the moral underpinnings of a peace-keeping strategy.
Readings/Bibliography
Abada I. et Al. (2023), “AI: Can Seemingly Collusive Outcomes Be Avoided?”, Management Science.
Acemoglu A. (2024), The Simple Macroeconomics of AI, NBER, 32487, May
Bandura A. (2016), Moral Disengagement, New York, MacMillan
Barrera A. (2024), Compassion-Justice Conflicts, CUP
Bowles S. (2016), The Moral Economy, New Haven, Yale University Press
Bruni L., S. Zamagni (2017), Civil Economy, London, Agenda
Calvano E. et Al. (2020), “AI, Algorithmic Pricing and Collusion”, American Economic Review, 110
Carr A. (1968), “Is Businnes Buffling Ethical?”, Harvard Businnes Review, XI
Falck A., N. Szech (2013), “Morals and Markets”, Science, pp. 707-712
Frey C.B. (2019), The Technology Trap. Capital, Labour and Power in the Age of Automation, Princeton, Princeton University Press
Goldberg P., T. Reed (2023), Is the Global Economy Deglobalizing?, Brookings Papers, March
Guzman M, J. Stiglitz (2024), Post-neoliberal Globalization, NBER, 32533.
Heckman et Al. (2023), The Economic Approach to Personality, Character and Virtue, NBER, 31258
Henderson R. (2020), Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire, New York, Public Affairs
Kasberger B. e. Al. (2024), Algorithmic Cooperation, Cesifo Wp 11124, May
Mittermeier K. (2020), The Hand Behind the Invisible Hand, Bristol, Bristol University Press
O’Hara M. (2016), Something for Nothing. Arbitrage and Ethics on Wall Street, New York, Norton
Oreskes N., E. Conway 2023), The Big Myth, New York, Bloomsberry Pub.
Pistor K. (2019), The Code of Capital. How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality, Princeton, PUP
Rajan R., L. Zingales (2023), What Purpose Do Corporations Purport?, Europe Corporate Governance Institute, WP 904
Rhodes C. (2022), Woke Capitalism, Bristol, Bristol University Press
Rona P., L. Zsolnai (eds.) (2017), Economics as a Moral Science, Berlin, Springer
Stiglitz J. (2024), The Road to Freedom, New York, Allen Lane
Sunstein C.R. (2021), Liars. Falsehoods and Free Speech in an Age of Deception, Oxford, OUP
Van Staveren I. (2007), “Beyond Utilitarianism and Deontology”, Review of Political Economy, 19
Wilber C. (2021), Was the Good Samaritan a Bad Economist?, New York, Lexington Books
Zamagni S., “The Idea od CSR and the Responses of Economic Theory”, in L. Bouchaert et Al. (eds.) (2018), Art, Spirituality, Economics, Berlin, Springer
Teaching methods
Lectures and in class discussions
Assessment methods
A 7000 words final paper on a topic freely chosen by the student among those dealt with during the course to be sent to the teacher no later than September 30, 2025
Students are advised that the present course is a PASS/FAIL one. The PASS evaluation can never be translated into a numerical grade in the official transcript of records.
Office hours
See the website of Stefano Zamagni
SDGs




This teaching activity contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda.