Stakes and Social Distance in Deceptive Behavior: Experimental Evidence from Malawi

Sammanfattning: In a novel experimental setting, we study how stakes and the social distance of the opponent affect deceptive behavior. We run a field experiment using pre-trained actors of different ethnicities who serve as customers utilizing a common means of transport - the bicycle taxi service in Lilongwe, Malawi. The actors are instructed to elicit a price from the driver, and, in cases where the latter does not have change, ask him to get change for the excess money and return. This gives the driver two opportunities not to adhere to the social norm of honesty - by overcharging, or outright stealing. We find that while social distance matters per se, we cannot support the hypothesis that stakes impact fraudulent behavior. In our exploratory analysis, we find evidence that moral priming affects cheating, as routes that have destinations with moral connotations present significantly lower rates of fraud.