Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/194797 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 6087
Version Description: 
This Version: March 2019
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
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.
Subjects: 
private information
honesty
truth-telling
lying
meta study
JEL: 
D03
D82
H26
I13
J31
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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