How Market Access Shapes Wellbeing and Values: Experimental Evidence from the D.R. Congo
How do markets shape human wellbeing, moral values, and psychological traits? While economists often treat markets as neutral spaces where individuals pursue fixed preferences, a long tradition in the social sciences—from Montesquieu and Smith to Marx and Durkheim—argues that markets can reshape those preferences themselves. While access to markets may raise incomes, it may also alter how people value themselves and relate to others. We provide causal evidence using a randomized program in the Democratic Republic of Congo that offered rural villagers weekly motorbike transport to the central market in Kananga, enabling sustained urban market access. A second treatment arm offered equivalent transport to large urban churches, allowing us to isolate the effects of market exposure from urban exposure more broadly; a third group received no intervention. On average nine months after the program ended, market participants earned 16% more than controls (+0.20 SD), driven by shifts into higher-margin goods, urban trading ties, and more frequent commerce. Yet despite these gains, they reported lower subjective wellbeing, higher depressive symptoms, and increased material aspirations. These declines were concentrated in more unequal villages and among individuals who fell in local income rank, consistent with a reference-dependent utility channel. Market access also reduced the salience of religion and increased emphasis on secular values such as income, thrift, and personal responsibility. Participants became more individualistic and endorsed stronger internal locus of control, but did not become more trusting, prosocial, or civically engaged. Markets changed what people value—without making them feel better off.
How do markets shape wellbeing, moral values, and psychological traits? While economics often treats markets as neutral spaces where individuals pursue fixed preferences, a long tradition in the social sciences—from Montesquieu and Smith to Marx and Durkheim—argues that markets can reshape those preferences themselves. Some claim markets encourage civility and trust; others warn they promote materialism and discontent. This study provides causal evidence on how access to markets affects both livelihoods and values by randomly expanding urban market access for rural households in the Democratic Republic of Congo. We ask whether sustained exposure to markets not only raises income but also changes what people value, how they view success, and how they interpret their place in the world.
We study a randomized controlled trial involving 4,200 individuals across 300 villages near Kananga, the fourth-largest city in the DRC. Villages were randomly assigned to one of three arms: (i) a “market access” treatment, offering free weekly motorcycle transport to the city’s main market for six months; (ii) a “church access” treatment, offering equivalent transport to large urban churches; or (iii) a pure control group. This design allows us to isolate the effects of market exposure from urban exposure more broadly, and to test whether any changes in values or wellbeing are specific to commercial interaction.
Market access led to substantial and persistent economic gains. Treated participants earned 16% more than controls nine months after the program ended (p<0.01). Gains were driven by shifts into high-markup products such as palm oil and coffee, greater likelihood of forming urban trading relationships (+3.2 percentage points), and more frequent participation in commerce. Men in a sub treatment arm encouraging wholesale trading, saw the largest income effects. However, there were no average effects on agricultural labor time, asset ownership, or employment overall, though some men took up salaried urban work (e.g., as drivers).
Despite these economic improvements, market access reduced subjective wellbeing on average. Participants reported higher levels of depression symptoms (+0.06 SDs), especially feelings of worthlessness and lack of purpose. They also believed they needed more money to be happy (an increase of 0.15 SDs), and, even after accounting for their income gains, reported feeling 0.14 SDs further from that target (p<0.01). These declines were not explained by income volatility or disappointment in post-program earnings. Instead, they appear to be driven by rising inequality within villages: the program increased income variance by 0.71 SDs, and individuals in more unequal villages or with falling relative income ranks experienced sharper declines in wellbeing. Discontent also spilled over to untreated friends of market participants, further underscoring the role of local reference points.
Access to markets also shifted participants’ values in systematic ways. Relative to controls, market participants placed less emphasis on religion across multiple domains: they assigned fewer tokens to religion as part of a “good life” (−0.36 SDs), “good person” (−0.44 SDs), and child-rearing priorities (−0.19 SDs), and reported lower participation in private prayer and church activities. In place of religious values, they placed more importance on income, education, thrift, and diligence—traits often associated with individual responsibility and productivity. These shifts are consistent with the rise of a more secular, self-directed orientation: market participants were 0.17 SDs more likely to endorse internal locus of control (p<0.01), and more likely to attribute success in marriage and work to their own choices rather than divine will.
We find no average effects on prosocial behavior. Giving in dictator games and universal morality measures show no treatment effect. However, market participants gave less to members of their religious network, suggesting a narrowing of moral concern rather than a collapse of generosity. In other domains, participants became more “bourgeois” but not more trusting or community-oriented. There was no evidence of increased civic participation or generalized trust.
These results have three main implications. First, markets are not value-neutral. Access to them affects not only income and economic behavior but also subjective wellbeing and core moral commitments. Second, the gains from markets come with social costs: they raise aspirations and inequality, and in doing so can lower overall wellbeing. Third, our results provide stronger support for the homo economicus criqieu than the doux commerce thesis. Rather than fostering civility and prosociality, market exposure in this setting secularized values and sharpened individualism—without increasing trust, cooperation, or subjective welfare.
Together, these findings suggest that welfare analysis should consider the endogenous nature of preferences. If market institutions shape values as well as outcomes, then economists and policymakers must rethink what it means to assess the gains from trade.
