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Honest On Mondays: Honesty And The Temporal Distance Between Decisions And Payoffs

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  • Bradley J. Ruffle

    () (BGU)

  • Yossef Tobol

    (School of Industrial Management Jerusalem College of Technology Jerusalem Israel and IZA, Bonn)

Abstract

We show that temporally distancing the decision task from the payment of the reward increases honest behavior. Each of 427 Israeli soldiers fulfilling their mandatory military service rolled a six-sided die in private and reported the outcome to the unit's cadet coordinator. For every point reported, the soldier received an additional half-hour early release from the army base on Thursday afternoon. Soldiers who participated on Sunday (the first work day of the week) are significantly more honest than those who participated later in the week. We derive practical implications for eliciting honesty.

Suggested Citation

  • Bradley J. Ruffle & Yossef Tobol, 2013. "Honest On Mondays: Honesty And The Temporal Distance Between Decisions And Payoffs," Working Papers 1301, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:bgu:wpaper:1301
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Bradley J. Ruffle & Yossef Tobol, 2017. "Clever enough to tell the truth," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(1), pages 130-155, March.
    2. Johannes Abeler & Daniele Nosenzo & Collin Raymond, 2016. "Preferences for Truth-Telling," CESifo Working Paper Series 6087, CESifo Group Munich.
    3. Bar-El, Ronen & Tobol, Yossi, 2017. "Honesty toward the Holy Day," IZA Discussion Papers 10609, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
    4. Sascha Behnk & Iván Barreda-Tarrazona & Aurora García-Gallego, 2017. "An experimental test of reporting systems for deception," Working Papers 2017/11, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).
    5. Arbel, Yuval & Bar-El, Ronen & Siniver, Erez & Tobol, Yossef, 2014. "Roll a die and tell a lie – What affects honesty?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PA), pages 153-172.
    6. Bernd Irlenbusch & Marie Claire Villeval, 2015. "Behavioral ethics: how psychology influenced economics and how economics might inform psychology?," Post-Print halshs-01159696, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    experimental economics; honesty; temporal distance; soldiers.;

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

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