Nobody Likes a Rat: On the Willingness and Consequences of Reporting Lies

Ernesto Reuben and Matthew Stephenson ()
Additional contact information
Matthew Stephenson: Columbia University

No 6998, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We investigate the intrinsic motivation of individuals to report, and thereby sanction, fellow group members who lie for personal gain. We further explore the changes in lying and reporting behavior that result from giving individuals a say in who joins their group. We find that enough individuals are willing to report lies such that in fixed groups lying is unprofitable. However, we also find that when groups can select their members, individuals who report lies are generally shunned, even by groups where lying is absent. This facilitates the formation of dishonest groups where lying is prevalent and reporting is nonexistent.

Keywords: lying aversion; whistleblowing; social norms; dishonesty; lying (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C92 D03 K42 M14 M42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2012-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-evo, nep-exp and nep-soc
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published - published in: Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2013, 93, 384-391

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp6998.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6998

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().