Dishonest Behavior: Sin Big or Go Home

10 Pages Posted: 15 Apr 2019 Last revised: 6 Nov 2024

See all articles by Jason Aimone

Jason Aimone

Baylor University

Brittany Ward

Texas A&M University - Department of Economics and Finance

James E. West

Baylor University - Department of Economics

Date Written: April 2019

Abstract

Economic agents face many different types of economic incentives when making financial and moral decisions. We provide experimental data from a population that uniquely responds to incentives to lie compared to previously studied populations. We conduct a standard 6-sided die rolling lying study within a population that believes that God has knowledge of all their actions. Within this population, we find that those who attend church frequently appear to refrain from lying while those that do not frequently attend church do lie, but do not disguise their lies like more secular populations. We further explain how our data fits into the theoretical work on lying.

Suggested Citation

Aimone, Jason and Ward, Brittany and West, James E., Dishonest Behavior: Sin Big or Go Home (April 2019). NBER Working Paper No. w25746, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3372050

Jason Aimone (Contact Author)

Baylor University

Brittany Ward

Texas A&M University - Department of Economics and Finance ( email )

College of Business and Technology
College Station, TX 77843-4353
United States

James E. West

Baylor University - Department of Economics ( email )

P.O. Box 98003
Waco, TX 76798-8003
United States
254-710-6126 (Phone)

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