NES Center for the Study of Diversity and Social Interactions and HSE International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development are happy to invite you to our joint meeting of the Research Seminar on Diversity and Development and HSE Seminar on Political Economy.

Speaker Johannes Abeler (University of Oxford) will present the paper "Determinants of preferences for honesty" (joint with Armin Falk and Fabian Kosse).

Abstract:

Reporting private information is a key part of economic decision making. A recent literature has found that many people have a preference for honest reporting, contrary to usual economic assumptions. In this paper, we investigate what determines these preferences. We experimentally measure preferences for honesty in a sample of children. We first document several correlations between a child’s reporting behaviour and parents’ characteristics. We then provide causal evidence on the effect of the social environment by randomly enrolling children in a year-long mentoring program. We find that almost four years after the end of the mentoring program, mentored children are significantly more honest.

Registration: till noon of October 1.