It's right there in the figures - practitioners of the dismal science are a pretty selfish bunch, says Ross Gittins.
Economists believe self-interest is the dominant motive in all human behaviour.
And this belief seems to infect their own behaviour. It gave them a sum of money and asked them to divide it into two accounts, public and private. They got to keep the money in their private account, whereas any money put into the public accounts was pooled, multiplied and then divided equally among all the players. The most socially advantageous outcome was for all the money to be put into the social account, but the best outcome for the individual was to put it into his private account. On average, the non-economist control group put almost half its money into the social account, but the economics students put in only 20 per cent.