Perceived Conduct and Professional Ethics among College Economics Faculty

We present survey results that shed light on the perceived frequency and severity of 61 professional practices. Our findings, based on questionnaires completed by 728 academic economists in the United States, suggest that most of the practices that might be considered ethically suspect also are perceived to occur relatively infrequently. The mean values for the responses to our survey are significantly lower, in absolute terms, than those recorded by Mason et al. (1990), who conducted an almost identical survey in 1987 of marketing academicians. However, in relative terms the perceived severity of these practices is highly consistent between economics faculty and marketing faculty.