Behavioral/experimental #EconSky with interest in honesty:
Our working paper is finally here!
"Individual Preferences for Truth-Telling" - with @simeonschudy.bsky.social and Susanna Grundmann.
First, here is what ChatGPT imagines it is about.
Now, let me tell you what we actually do.
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Our working paper is finally here!
"Individual Preferences for Truth-Telling" - with @simeonschudy.bsky.social and Susanna Grundmann.
First, here is what ChatGPT imagines it is about.
Now, let me tell you what we actually do.
1/7
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Comments
Theoretical models and aggregate data suggest that preferences for truth-telling stem from
i) intrinsic motivation to be honest (intrinsic lying costs - ILC)
ii) preference to be seen as honest (social image costs - SIC).
We had no measure for these at the individual level.
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1️⃣ develop an incentivized measure that captures
- both cost types, ILC and SIC,
- at the individual level
- independently of each other
- in a setting where the underlying truth is unobservable to the experimenter.
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2️⃣ classify four main preference types
1) low ILC & low SIC
2) low ILC & high SIC
3) high ILC & low SIC
4) high ILC & high SIC
and document substantial heterogeneity in types across three different samples:
- student sample,
- convenience sample, and
- UK representative sample.
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- internally valid (using treatments that vary the costs)
- predictive of behavior in other commonly used experimental honesty paradigms
Example below: mind game in which participants whom we classify as having low ILC and low SIC claim larger payoffs.
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- captures both cost types
- correlates with our experimental measure
- is predictive of behavior in the mind game
- takes two minutes to complete
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- early-life outcomes
- labor market outcomes
- household formation.
Some highlights: we find assortative matching based on ILC/SIC types and a correlation between SIC and growing up in the GDR.
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https://www.cesifo.org/node/83688