Although examples of deception and fraud in business have generated widespread interest in themotivations for honest behavior, little is known about individual differences in the propensity totell the truth. This paper highlights the role of honesty as a protected value, maintaining thatsome...

We conduct an experiment assessing the extent to which people trade off the economic costs of truthfulness against the intrinsic costs of lying. The results allow us to reject a type-based model. People's preferences for truthfulness do not identify them as only either "economic types" (who care...

There are people who are motivated by the non-selfish, non-strategic, and non-consequentialist“protected value” of truthfulness. We conduct an experiment directly assessing thisphenomenon. We find that people differ substantially in their truthfulness, with a largeminority powerfully...

Extant research shows that CEO characteristics affect earnings management. This paper studies how investors infer a specific characteristic of CEOs, namely moral commitment to honesty, from earnings management and how this perception - in conjunction with their own social and moral preferences -...

Seminal work in finance, economics, and psychology has documented that individuals tell the truth more often than standard economic models predict. But researchers have so far only indirectly inferred a preference for truth-telling from agents’ observed behavior. Using experiments, we explore...

This paper studies how investors infer CEO commitment to honesty from earnings management and how these perceptions – in conjunction with investors’ own social and moral preferences – shape their investment choices. We conduct two laboratory experiments simulating investment choices. Our...

Social norms can act as safeguards against corporate misconduct, but can also foster undesirable behavior. To study differences in individual resistance to social norms, we conduct a laboratory experiment on misrepresentation of earnings. There are systematic differences among individuals'...

We conduct an experiment assessing the extent to which people trade off the economic costs of truthfulness against the intrinsic costs of lying. The results allow us to reject a type-based model. People's preferences for truthfulness do not identify them as only either quot;economic typesquot;...