Deception and Misreporting in a Social Program

Cesar Martinelli and Susan Parker ()

No 602, Working Papers from Centro de Investigacion Economica, ITAM

Abstract: We investigate empirically the extent of misreporting in a poverty-alleviation program in which self-reported information, followed by a household visit, is used to determine eligibility. Underreporting may be due to a deception motive, and overreporting to an embarrassment motive. We find that underreporting of goods and desirable home characteristics is widespread, and that overreporting is common with respect to goods linked to social status. Larger program benefits encourage underreporting and discourage overreporting. The effect of benefits on underreporting is significant under a variety of specifications. We also investigate the effects of education and gender on misreporting.

Pages: 21 pages
Date: 2006-06-16
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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http://ftp.itam.mx/pub/academico/inves/martinelli/06-02.pdf First version, 2006 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Deception and Misreporting in a Social Program (2009)
Working Paper: Deception and Misreporting in a Social Program (2007)
Working Paper: Deception and Misreporting in a Social Program (2006)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cie:wpaper:0602

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