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Deception through telling the truth?! Experimental evidence from individuals and teams

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  • Matthias Sutter

Abstract

Informational asymmetries abound in economic decision making and often provide an incentive for deception through telling a lie or misrepresenting information. In this paper I use a cheap-talk sender-receiver experiment to show that telling the truth should be classified as deception too if the sender chooses the true message with the expectation that the receiver will not follow the sender's (true) message. The experimental data reveal a large degree of 'sophisticated' deception through telling the truth. The robustness of my broader definition of deception is confirmed in an experimental treatment where teams make decisions.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthias Sutter, 2007. "Deception through telling the truth?! Experimental evidence from individuals and teams," Working Papers 2007-26, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    • Handle: RePEc:inn:wpaper:2007-26
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin G. Kocher & Matthias Sutter, 2005. "The Decision Maker Matters: Individual Versus Group Behaviour in Experimental Beauty-Contest Games," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(500), pages 200-223, January.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Deception; Expectations; Team decision making; Individual decision making; Experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

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