Lies and Biased Evaluation: A Real-Effort Experiment

Julie Rosaz () and Marie Claire Villeval

No 1124, Working Papers from Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon

Abstract: This paper presents the results of a laboratory experiment in which workers perform a real-effort task and supervisors report the workers’ performance to the experimenter. The report is non verifiable and determines the earnings of both the supervisor and the worker. We find that not all the supervisors, but at least one third of them bias their report. Both selfish black lies (increasing the supervisor’s earnings while decreasing the worker’s payoff) and Pareto white lies (increasing the earnings of both) according to Erat and Gneezy (2009)’s terminology are frequent. In contrast, spiteful black lies (decreasing the earnings of both) and altruistic white lies (increasing the earnings of workers but decreasing those of the supervisor) are almost non-existent. The supervisors’ second-order beliefs and their decision to lie are highly correlated, suggesting that guilt aversion plays a role.

Keywords: lies; deception; self-image; guilt aversion; lie-aversion; evaluation; experiments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D82 M52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-exp, nep-hpe and nep-hrm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
ftp://ftp.gate.cnrs.fr/RePEc/2011/1124.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Lies and biased evaluation: A real-effort experiment (2012)
Working Paper: Lies and Biased Evaluation: A Real-Effort Experiment (2012)
Working Paper: Lies and Biased Evaluation in a Real-Effort Experiment (2011)
Working Paper: Lies and Biased Evaluation in a Real-Effort Experiment (2011)
Working Paper: Lies and Biased Evaluation in a Real-Effort Experiment (2011)
Working Paper: Lies and Biased Evaluation: A Real-Effort Experiment (2011)
Working Paper: Lies and Biased Evaluation: A Real-Effort Experiment (2011)
Working Paper: Lies and Biased Evaluation in a Real-Effort Experiment (2010)
Working Paper: Lies and Biased Evaluation in a Real-Effort Experiment (2010)
Working Paper: Lies and Biased Evaluation in a Real-Effort Experiment (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gat:wpaper:1124

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