Oliver Kirchkamp

Do I care if the others lie? Current and future effects of delegation of lying

Serhiy Kandul and Oliver Kirchkamp

In this study we want to find out how people behave in a situation where they can themselves lie or they can share the responsibility for lying with others. To answer this question we study a sender-receiver game followed by a dictator game. It is possible to delegate the act of lying in the sender-receiver game and take pro-social actions in the subsequent dictator game. We examine how delegation affects the outcomes of current and future ethical decisions. We find that a non-trivial fraction of participants delegate their decision and delegation is associated with higher transfers in the subsequent dictator game.

JEL: C72, D82

Keywords: Sender-Receiver games, moral balancing, guilt aversion.