Big and Small Lies

D.J. da Cunha Batista Geraldes, Franziska Heinicke and Duk Gyoo Kim

Working Papers from Utrecht School of Economics

Abstract: Lying involves many decisions yielding big or small benefits. Are big and small lies complementary or supplementary? In a laboratory experiment where the participants could simultaneously tell a big and a small lie, our study finds that lies are complementary. The participants who lie more in the big lie, also do so in the small lie and vice versa. Our study also finds that although replacing one dimension of the lying opportunities with a randomly determined prize does not affect the overall lying behavior, repeatedly being lucky on a high-stakes prize leads to less lying on the report of a low-stakes outcome.

Keywords: laboratory experiment; lying; luck; honesty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2021-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-his and nep-hrm
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Big and small lies (2021)
Working Paper: Big and Small Lies (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:use:tkiwps:2103

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