Competition, information, and the erosion of morals

Julien Benistant, Fabio Galeotti and Marie Claire Villeval

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2022, vol. 204, issue C, 148-163

Abstract: We study the impact of competition on morals using a dynamic variant of the die-under-the-cup task. Players can repeatedly misreport the outputs of consecutive die rolls to earn more money, either under an individual piece-rate pay scheme or in a two-player tournament. In this dynamic setting, we disentangle the effect of the incentive scheme and the effect of information provision about one’s relative performance, by comparing settings with continuous vs. final ex post feedback on the counterpart’s reported outcome. We find that individuals lie more under competitive rather than non-competitive incentive schemes, but only if both players can cheat in the tournament. Continuous feedback on the counterpart’s reports does not increase cheating in the tournament, while it does under the piece-rate scheme. These findings shed light on the effects that different competition and information policies have on morals in occupational settings.

Keywords: Dishonesty; Feedback; Peer effects; Competitive incentives; Experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C92 D83 M52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Working Paper: Competition, Information, and the Erosion of Morals (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:204:y:2022:i:c:p:148-163

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2022.10.008

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