ARE ECONOMISTS DIFFERENT - AN EMPIRICAL NOTE

This article examines a game-theoretic approach by Carter and Irons wh ich tests the proposition that ''economists'' behave differently than ''non-economists.'' By supplementing an economics experiment among col lege undergraduates with a survey of the students' previous exposure t o economics we lend support to the hypothesis that students who unders tand basic economic axioms will employ this logic in decision-making p rocesses. However, by controlling for the students' present field of s tudy, we find contrary evidence to the Carter-Irons theory, that the s tudents who grasp the basic economic axioms will self-select economics as a field of study. Despite our improvements to the Carter-Irons tes t, little additional evidence is provided to determine if economists a re born or made.