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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geb.2020.09.009
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Does poverty negate the impact of social norms on cheating?
[journal article]
Abstract Cheating such as corruption and tax evasion is prevalent in the developing world; therefore, many interventions have been undertaken to reduce cheating in developing countries. Although some field evidence shows that poverty is correlated with cheating, the causal effect of poverty on cheating in th... view more
Cheating such as corruption and tax evasion is prevalent in the developing world; therefore, many interventions have been undertaken to reduce cheating in developing countries. Although some field evidence shows that poverty is correlated with cheating, the causal effect of poverty on cheating in the field and the effectiveness of interventions for financially constrained people remain an open question. We present results from a lab-in-the-field experiment with low-income rice farmers in Thailand (N = 568), in which we, first, investigate the causal effect of poverty on cheating and, second, test whether poverty affects the effectiveness of a social-norm intervention to reduce cheating. We show poverty itself does not affect willingness to cheat. However, although a social-norm-reminder intervention reduced cheating when the population was richer (after harvest), it had no effect when the population was poorer (before harvest). Our results suggest that the timing of interventions to change behavior might matter.... view less
Keywords
poverty; social norm; intervention; fraud; Thailand
Classification
Social Problems
Sociology of Developing Countries, Developmental Sociology
Free Keywords
cheating; lab-in-the-field experiment; lying
Document language
English
Publication Year
2020
Page/Pages
p. 569-578
Journal
Games and Economic Behavior, 124 (2020)
ISSN
1090-2473
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed
Licence
Creative Commons - Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0