I might be a liar, but not a thief: An experimental distinction between the moral costs of lying and stealing

Daniel Hermann and Oliver Musshoff

No 346, University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics from University of Goettingen, Department of Economics

Abstract: In this paper, we shed light on the different moral costs of dishonesty and stealing. To accomplish this, we set up a die-rolling task which allowed participants to increase their own payout through dishonesty or theft. The results show that participants have fewer reservations about dishonesty compared to stealing, which implies higher intrinsic costs for stealing. We found that gender contributes to this effect, as women distinguish significantly between lying and stealing, while men do not.

Keywords: Lying; Deception; Stealing; Laboratory Experiment; Behavioral Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D63 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp and nep-hpe
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:cegedp:346

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