Observe or Violate: Intrinsic Motivation of Academic Ethics

We study intrinsic motivation for university students' compliance with the requirements of academic ethics. A theoretical model presented in the paper suggests that such motivation is predicated on students' moral norms, on their expectations of rule compliance among their peers, and on their academic performance. We present an empirical analysis which corroborates these hypotheses and measures the strength of the above factors of ethical behavior. Empirical data are generated by an experiment held at the National Research University Higher School of Economics and at the New Economic School, whereby some exams were offered in the "take home" format.