Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/229322 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
WIDER Working Paper No. 2020/98
Publisher: 
The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki
Abstract: 
We run a lab-in-the-field experiment with 1,060 university students in Mozambique to examine the correlates of behavioural dishonesty, distinguishing between intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Using an incentivized dice game, which yields direct estimates of the propensity to cheat, we find that the effects of demographic and personality traits (e.g., gender, work ethic) generally run in the opposite direction to previous studies. Contingent situational factors, including temperature, humidity, and the number of participants in the room, are associated with large differences in dishonesty-for example, on warm and humid days the predicted cheating rate increased by 14 percentage points. However, in line with theories of trait activation, these extrinsic effects are highly heterogeneous and interact with intrinsic factors, which we believe constitutes an important area for further research.
Subjects: 
cheating
dice game
dishonest behaviour
Mozambique
personality traits
temperature
JEL: 
C91
D91
O12
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
ISBN: 
978-92-9256-855-9
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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