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Screening Ethics when Honest Agents Care about Fairness

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Author Info
Ingela Alger () (Boston College)
Regis Renault () (GEMMA, Université de Caen)

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Abstract

We explore the potential for discriminating between honest and dishonest agents, when a principal faces an agent with private information about the circumstances of the exchange (good or bad). When honest agents reveal circumstances truthfully independently of the contract offered, the principal leaves a rent only to dishonest agents (even if honest agents are willing to lie about their ethics); the principal is able to screen between good and bad circumstances. In contrast, if honest behavior is conditional on the contract being fair, the principal cannot screen along the ethics dimension. If the probability that the agent is dishonest is large, the optimal mechanism is as if the agent were dishonest with certainty (standard second best). Otherwise, it is as if the agent were honest with certainty (first best). In the latter case, the principal is unable to screen between circumstances if the agent is dishonest.

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File URL: http://fmwww.bc.edu/EC-P/WP489.pdf
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Boston College Department of Economics in its series Boston College Working Papers in Economics with number 489.

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Length: 27 pages
Date of creation: 30 Nov 2000
Date of revision: 09 Nov 2004
Handle: RePEc:boc:bocoec:489

Note: This paper was previously circulated as "Screening among Agents with Heterogeneous Ethics".
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Related research
Keywords: ethics honesty adverse selection screening

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

  1. Ingela Alger & Regis Renault, 2003. "Screening Ethics when Honest Agents Keep their Word," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 562, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 09 Nov 2004. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Brian Erard & Jonathan S. Feinstein, 1994. "Honesty and Evasion in the Tax Compliance Game," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 25(1), pages 1-19, Spring. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Alger, Ingela & Albert Ma, Ching-to, 2003. "Moral hazard, insurance, and some collusion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 225-247, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Picard, Pierre, 1996. "Auditing claims in the insurance market with fraud: The credibility issue," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 27-56, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Lacker, J.M., 1989. "Optimal Contracts Under Costly State Falsification," Purdue University Economics Working Papers 956, Purdue University, Department of Economics.
    Other versions:
  6. James Andreoni & Brian Erard & Jonathan Feinstein, 1998. "Tax Compliance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(2), pages 818-860, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. TIROLE, Jean, 1991. "Collusion and the Theory of Organizations," IDEI Working Papers 9, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
  8. Keith J. Crocker & John Morgan, 1998. "Is Honesty the Best Policy? Curtailing Insurance Fraud through Optimal Incentive Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(2), pages 355-375, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Green, Jerry R & Laffont, Jean-Jacques, 1986. "Partially Verifiable Information and Mechanism Design," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 53(3), pages 447-56, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. F. Forges & Frederic Koessler, 2003. "Communication Equilibria with Partially Verifiable Types," THEMA Working Papers 2003-10, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise. [Downloadable!]
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  11. Dawes, Robyn M & Thaler, Richard H, 1988. "Anomalies: Cooperation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 187-97, Summer. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Jaffee, Dwight M & Russell, Thomas, 1976. "Imperfect Information, Uncertainty, and Credit Rationing," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 90(4), pages 651-66, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Ingela Alger & Regis Renault, 2003. "Screening Ethics when Honest Agents Keep their Word," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 562, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 09 Nov 2004. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Laurent Denant-Boemont & David Masclet & Charles Noussair, 2005. "Announcement, Observation, and Honesty in the Voluntary Contributions Game," Emory Economics 0509, Department of Economics, Emory University (Atlanta). [Downloadable!]
  3. Stephanie Rosenkranz & Patrick W. Schmitz, 2005. "Reserve prices in auctions as reference points," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers bgse24_2005, University of Bonn, Germany. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Stefano Demichelis & Jörgen W. Weibull, 2007. "Language, meaning and games: a model of communication, coordination and evolution," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 61, Collegio Carlo Alberto. [Downloadable!]
  5. Demichelis, Stefano & Weibull, Jörgen, 2006. "Efficiency, communication and honesty," Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 645, Stockholm School of Economics, revised 28 Nov 2006. [Downloadable!]
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