On the Persistence of Dishonesty

Stefania Bortolotti, Felix Kölle and Lukas Wenner ()
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Lukas Wenner: Department of Economics, University of Cologne

No 111, ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series from University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany

Abstract: In social and economic interactions, individuals often exploit informational asymmetries and behave dishonestly to pursue private ends. In many of these situations the costs and benefits from dishonest behavior do not accrue immediately and at the same time. In this paper, we experimentally investigate the role of time on dishonesty. Contrary to our predictions, we find that neither delaying the gains from cheating, nor increasing temporal engagement with one's own unethical behavior reduces the likelihood of cheating. Furthermore, allowing for a delay between the time when private information is obtained and when it is reported does not affect cheating in our experiment.

Keywords: Dishonesty; cheating; delay; discounting; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D82 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2021-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp, nep-isf, nep-ore and nep-soc
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https://www.econtribute.de/RePEc/ajk/ajkdps/ECONtribute_111_2021.pdf First version, 2021 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: On the persistence of dishonesty (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:111

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