Lying About What You Know or About What You Do?
TILEC Discussion Paper No. 2011-055
CentER Discussion Paper Series No. 2011-139
41 Pages Posted: 1 Apr 2010 Last revised: 14 Dec 2011
There are 2 versions of this paper
Lying About What You Know or About What You Do?
Lying About What You Know or About What You Do?
Date Written: December 14, 2011
Abstract
We compare communication about private information to communication about actions in a one-shot 2-person public good game with private information.The informed player, who knows the exact return from contributing and whose contribution is unobserved, can send a message about the return or her contribution. Theoretically, messages can elicit the uninformed player's contribution, and allow the informed player to free-ride.The exact language used is not expected to matter. Experimentally, however, we find that free-riding depends on the language: the informed player free-rides less, and thereby lies less frequently, when she talks about her contribution than when she talks about the return. Further experimental evidence indicates that it is the promise component in messages about the contribution that leads to less free-riding and less lying.
Keywords: Information transmission, lying, communication, experiment
JEL Classification: C72, D82, D83
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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