Lying for others: The impact of agency on misreporting

Georgia E. Buckle, Sascha Füllbrunn () and Wolfgang Luhan

Economics Letters, 2021, vol. 198, issue C

Abstract: We extend the experimental design by Fischbacher and Föllmi-Heusi (2013) to examine lying behavior on behalf of others, eliminating all possible incentives apart from social preferences. We compare the prevalence of misreporting in situations where the monetary gain either goes to the decision-maker or to an anonymous other participant. Overall we observe lower levels of lying for others compared to for oneself, however, a significant number of participants were willing to lie to increase another participant’s payoff, with no economic incentive to do so. We find no partial lying for others but rather two extremes: either complete honesty or maximal lying.

Keywords: Lying aversion; Decision making for others; Prosocial lying; Experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D63 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Working Paper: Lying for Others: The Impact of Agency on Misreporting (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:198:y:2021:i:c:s0165176520304377

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2020.109677

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