Preferences for truth-telling

Abeler, Johannes; Nosenzo, Daniele; Raymond, Collin

Abstract

Private information is at the heart of many economic activities. For decades, economists have assumed that individuals are willing to misreport private information if this maximizes their material payoff. We combine data from 90 experimental studies in economics, psychology and sociology, and show that, in fact, people lie surprisingly little. We then formalize a wide range of potential explanations for the observed behavior, identify testable predictions that can distinguish between the models and conduct new experiments to do so. Our empirical evidence suggests that a preference for being seen as honest and a preference for being honest are the main motivations for truth-telling.

Citation

Abeler, J., Nosenzo, D., & Raymond, C. (2019). Preferences for truth-telling. Econometrica, 87(4), 1115-1153. https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA14673

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 12, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Jul 25, 2019
• Publication Date: 2019-07
• Deposit Date: Sep 14, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 14, 2018
• Journal: Econometrica
• Print ISSN: 0012-9682
• Electronic ISSN: 1468-0262
• Publisher: Econometric Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 87
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 1115-1153
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA14673
• Keywords: private information, honesty, truth-telling, lying, meta study
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1075760
• Publisher URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.3982/ECTA14673
• Related Public URLs: https://www.econometricsociety.org/publications/econometrica/2019/02/01/preferences-truth-telling
• Additional Information: The copyright to this article is held by the Econometric Society, http://www.econometricsociety.org/. It may be downloaded, printed and reproduced only for personal or classroom use. Absolutely no downloading or copying may be done for, or on behalf of, any for-profit commercial firm or for other commercial purpose without the explicit permission of the Econometric Society.