Lie for me: An experiment about delegation, efficiency, and morality

Individuals and organizations may delegate others to perform actions they would not do themselves because of moral constraints. In our experimental setting, a Principal can either self-report a value in a die-under-the-cup task or delegate the report to an Agent who has no material interest in the report. We experimentally manipulate the relative efficiency of the report: the Agent’s prospect either stochastically dominates that of the Principal or vice versa. We find that Principals have a high propensity to lie and delegate only when the Agent’s prospect is more efficient. Agents generally behave honestly, but those with higher prosocial attitudes tend to lie when assigned an inefficient lottery, most likely not to let down the Principal.