{"title":"Lying in competitive environments: Identifying behavioral impacts","authors":"Simon Dato , Eberhard Feess , Petra Nieken","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104844","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Incentive schemes based on relative performance provide high effort incentives, but may backfire by increasing incentives for misconduct. Previous literature supports this view by demonstrating that, as compared to individual incentive schemes based on absolute performance only, highly competitive environments are associated with higher degrees of lying and cheating. However, it is not clear if this is (mainly) driven by stronger financial incentives or by competition per se and its behavioral effects. We conduct an online experiment with competitive and individual incentive schemes in which the financial incentives to lie are held constant. From a behavioral perspective, a competitive environment may increase the willingness for misconduct via a desire-to-win, but may also decrease it via the negative payoff externality on competitors. Our results provide evidence of a significant lying-enhancing desire-to-win-effect and an insignificant lying-reducing negative externality effect.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292124001739/pdfft?md5=02090b78281b8f38580afd98c1c17d14&pid=1-s2.0-S0014292124001739-main.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"European Economic Review","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292124001739","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Incentive schemes based on relative performance provide high effort incentives, but may backfire by increasing incentives for misconduct. Previous literature supports this view by demonstrating that, as compared to individual incentive schemes based on absolute performance only, highly competitive environments are associated with higher degrees of lying and cheating. However, it is not clear if this is (mainly) driven by stronger financial incentives or by competition per se and its behavioral effects. We conduct an online experiment with competitive and individual incentive schemes in which the financial incentives to lie are held constant. From a behavioral perspective, a competitive environment may increase the willingness for misconduct via a desire-to-win, but may also decrease it via the negative payoff externality on competitors. Our results provide evidence of a significant lying-enhancing desire-to-win-effect and an insignificant lying-reducing negative externality effect.
期刊介绍：
The European Economic Review (EER) started publishing in 1969 as the first research journal specifically aiming to contribute to the development and application of economics as a science in Europe. As a broad-based professional and international journal, the EER welcomes submissions of applied and theoretical research papers in all fields of economics. The aim of the EER is to contribute to the development of the science of economics and its applications, as well as to improve communication between academic researchers, teachers and policy makers across the European continent and beyond.
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