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Deception and Incentives: How Dishonesty Undermines Effort Provision

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Author Info
Florian Ederer () (MIT)
Ernst Fehr () (University of Zurich and IZA)

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Abstract

In this paper we show that subtle forms of deceit undermine the effectiveness of incentives. We design an experiment in which the principal has an interest in underreporting the true performance difference between the agents in a dynamic tournament. According to the standard approach, rational agents should completely disregard the performance feedback of self-interested principals and choose their effort level as if they had not been given any information. However, despite substantial underreporting many principals seem to exhibit lying aversion which renders their feedback informative. Therefore, the agents respond to the feedback but discount it strongly by reducing their effort relative to fully truthful performance feedback. Moreover, previous experiences of being deceived exacerbate the problem and eventually reduce average effort even below the level that prevails in the absence of any feedback. Thus, both no feedback and truthful feedback are better for incentives than biased feedback.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 3200.

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Length: 53 pages
Date of creation: Dec 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3200

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Related research
Keywords: deception; dishonesty; communication; cheap talk; dynamic tournaments;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search, Learning, and Information
C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
M12 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Business Administration - - - Personnel Management; Executive Compensation

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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. Uri Gneezy, 2005. "Deception: The Role of Consequences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 384-394, March. [Downloadable!]
  2. Bull, Clive & Schotter, Andrew & Weigelt, Keith, 1987. "Tournaments and Piece Rates: An Experimental Study," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(1), pages 1-33, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Edward P. Lazear & Sherwin Rosen, 1981. "Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts," NBER Working Papers 0401, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Blume, Andreas, et al, 1998. "Experimental Evidence on the Evolution of Meaning of Messages in Sender-Receiver Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(5), pages 1323-40, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Sanchez-Pages, Santiago & Vorsatz, Marc, 2007. "An experimental study of truth-telling in a sender-receiver game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 86-112, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  6. Nina Mazar & Dan Ariely, 2006. "Dishonesty in everyday life and its policy implications," Working Papers 06-3, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. [Downloadable!]
  7. Christine Harbring & Bernd Irlenbusch & Matthias Kräkel & Reinhard Selten, 2004. "Sabotage in Asymmetric Contests – An Experimental Analysis," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers bgse12_2004, University of Bonn, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  8. Joseph Tao-yi Wang & Michael Spezio & Colin F. Camerer, 2006. "Pinocchio's Pupil: Using Eyetracking and Pupil Dilation to Understand Truth-telling and Deception in Games," Levine's Bibliography 321307000000000042, UCLA Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  9. John W. Dickhaut & Kevin A. McCabe & Arijit Mukherji, 1995. "An experimental study of strategicinformation transmission," Economic Theory, Springer, vol. 6(3), pages 389-403.
  10. Vincent P. Crawford, 2003. "Lying for Strategic Advantage: Rational and Boundedly Rational Misrepresentation of Intentions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 133-149, March. [Downloadable!]
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  11. Crawford, Vincent P & Sobel, Joel, 1982. "Strategic Information Transmission," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1431-51, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Cai, Hongbin & Wang, Joseph Tao-Yi, 2006. "Overcommunication in strategic information transmission games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 7-36, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Schotter, Andrew & Weigelt, Keith, 1992. "Asymmetric Tournaments, Equal Opportunity Laws, and Affirmative Action: Some Experimental Results," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 107(2), pages 511-39, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  14. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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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. Ghazala Azmat & Nagore Iriberri, 2009. "The Importance of Relative Performance Feedback Information: Evidence from a Natural Experiment using High School Students," CEP Discussion Papers dp0915, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE. [Downloadable!]
  2. Tor Eriksson & Anders Poulsen & Marie-Claire Villeval, 2008. "Feedback and Incentives : Experimental Evidence," Post-Print halshs-00276396_v1, HAL. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Ghazala Azmat & Nagore Iriberri, 2009. "The Importance of Relative Performance Feedback Information: Evidence from a Natural Experiment using High School Students," Economics Working Papers 1148, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jul 2009. [Downloadable!]
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