Contagious Dishonesty: Corruption Scandals and Supermarket Theft

Federico Masera () and Giorgio Gulino

No 1267, Working Papers from Barcelona School of Economics

Abstract: Is dishonest behavior contagious? We answer this question by studying whether corruption scandals affect the propensity of supermarket customers to steal while using a self-service checkout system. Crucially, this system allows shoppers to engage in dishonest behavior by under-reporting the value of their shopping cart. Exploiting data from random audits on shoppers, we show that the probability of stealing increases by 16% after a local corruption scandal breaks. This effect is not driven by any change in material incentives. Suggestive evidence shows that it is driven by a reduction in the self-imposed cost of stealing triggered by emotions.

Keywords: crime; corruption; consumer behavior; norms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 D73 K42 Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-acc, nep-soc and nep-ure
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Journal Article: Contagious Dishonesty: Corruption Scandals and Supermarket Theft (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bge:wpaper:1267

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