Large stakes and little honesty? Experimental evidence from a developing country

Andreas Leibbrandt, Pushkar Maitra and Ananta Neelim

Economics Letters, 2018, vol. 169, issue C, 76-79

Abstract: We experimentally study the extent to which individuals are honest when lying can result in a gain of several months’ worth of income. Randomly selected individuals from villages in Bangladesh participated in a sender–receiver cheap talk game. We varied the potential benefits from providing false recommendations. While we find that individuals are more likely to provide false recommendations when stakes are very large, we still observe that almost half of the senders refrain from lying. In contrast, receivers are generally suspicious and the majority does not follow recommendations.

Keywords: Artefactual field experiment; Honesty; Deception; Stakes; Development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Working Paper: Large Stakes and Little Honesty? Experimental Evidence from a Developing Countr (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:169:y:2018:i:c:p:76-79

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2018.05.007

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