Honesty on the Streets. A Field Study on Newspaper Purchasing

Pruckner, Gerald J. and Sausgruber, Rupert (2013) Honesty on the Streets. A Field Study on Newspaper Purchasing. Journal of the European Economic Association, 11 (3). pp. 661-679. ISSN 1542-4766

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Abstract

Many publishers use an honor system for selling newspapers in the street. We conducted a field experiment to study honesty in this market, finding that a moral reminder increases the level of honesty in payments, whereas the same message has no effect on whether one is honest. Reminding customers of the legal norm has no effect. We argue that these results are consistent with a preference for honesty, based on an internalized social norm. Auxiliary evidence suggests that the moral message remains effective when it is posted for longer periods, and even when it is removed again. (authors' abstract)

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	To see the final version of this paper please visit the publisher's website. Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content. The original publication is available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/.
Classification Codes:	JEL C93, H26, K42
Divisions:	Departments > Volkswirtschaft > Finanzwissenschaft u öffentl. Wirtschaft
Version of the Document:	Accepted for Publication
Depositing User:	ePub Administrator
Date Deposited:	07 May 2014 09:54
Last Modified:	10 Aug 2015 07:56
Related URLs:	Publisher
FIDES Link:	https://bach.wu.ac.at/d/research/results/62907/
URI:	https://epub.wu.ac.at/id/eprint/4138

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