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  3. American Economic Review
  4. February 2018
  5. Lying Aversion and the Size of the Lie

American Economic Review

ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)

Lying Aversion and the Size of the Lie

  • Uri Gneezy
  • Agne Kajackaite
  • Joel Sobel
American Economic Review
vol. 108, no. 2, February 2018
(pp. 419–53)
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Abstract

This paper studies lying. An agent randomly picks a number from a known distribution. She can then report any number and receive a monetary payoff based only on her report. The paper presents a model of lying costs that generates hypotheses regarding behavior. In an experiment, we find that the highest fraction of lies is from reporting the maximal outcome, but some participants do not make the maximal lie. More participants lie partially when the experimenter cannot observe their outcomes than when the experimenter can verify the observed outcome. Partial lying increases when the prior probability of the highest outcome decreases.

Citation

Gneezy, Uri, Agne Kajackaite, and Joel Sobel. 2018. "Lying Aversion and the Size of the Lie." American Economic Review, 108 (2): 419–53. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20161553

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • C91 Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Individual
  • D12 Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
  • D90 Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: General
  • Z13 Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification