Monetary incentives and the contagion of unethical behavior

Benoît Le Maux (), David Masclet () and Sarah Necker
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Benoît Le Maux: CREM - Centre de recherche en économie et management - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - UR - Université de Rennes - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
David Masclet: CREM - Centre de recherche en économie et management - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - UR - Université de Rennes - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CIRANO - Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en analyse des organisations [Montréal, Canada] = Center for Interuniversity Research and Analysis on Organizations [Montréal, Canada]

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Abstract: We examine how monetary incentives and information about others' dishonesty affect lying decisions and whether these two dimensions interact with each other. Our experiment consists of a repeated cheating game where we vary the monetary incentives (Low, High, and Very High) and information about others' dishonesty (With or Without information). We find that dishonesty decreases when payoffs are Very High. Information has only a weak positive effect on average. Conditioning on beliefs, we find that those who overestimate (underestimate) cheating reduce (increase) dishonesty. Information and payoffs do not interact with each other.

Keywords: Laboratory experiment; Cheating; Monetary incentives; Information; Lying cost; C91; D03; D78 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-07-22
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-04700382v1
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Published in Journal of the Economic Science Association, 2024, ⟨10.1007/s40881-024-00175-5⟩

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Related works:
Journal Article: Monetary incentives and the contagion of unethical behavior (2024)
Working Paper: Monetary incentives and the contagion of unethical behavior (2021)
Working Paper: Monetary incentives and the contagion of unethical behavior (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04700382

DOI: 10.1007/s40881-024-00175-5

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