Humans often lie strategically. We study this problem in an ultimatum game involving informed proposers and uninformed responders, where the former can send an unverifiable statement about their endowment. If there are some intrinsically honest proposers, a simple message game shows that the...

Humans can lie strategically in order to leverage on their negotiation power. For instance, governments can claim that a "scapegoat" third party is responsible for reforms that impose higher costs on citizens, in order to make the pill sweeter. This paper analyzes such communication strategy...