"During the first 18 months of research, I worked on the objectives of Work Package 1 (WP1) and Work Package 3 (WP3). In particular, I finalized the design and theoretical aspects of the field and lab experiments defined in WP1 and WP3 and collected all the relevant data. I also analyzed the data and wrote two articles. These two articles are publicly available as GATE working papers and are published in two international peer-reviewed journals. One article builds on the research and Objectives (1A and 1B) defined in WP1. A second article covers the Objectives (3A and 3B) described in WP3.
In terms of results, I show that when there is an opportunity to earn more money by behaving dishonestly and there is no risk of detection, people display very heterogeneous behaviors: some individuals do not cheat at all, while others act partially dishonestly and others cheat fully to maximize their earnings. This diversity of behavior in the laboratory tasks replicated the diversity of the degrees of moral firmness of the same individuals in their day-to-day life. These findings indicate that simple lab experiments can capture the dishonest behavior of ordinary people in real life. A result which has important methodological implications since it provides support to the external validity of lab experiments in a domain that is not easily observable in the field because of its secretive nature. In line with Objectives 1A and Objective 1B, I also provide a complete and accurate behavioral and demographic profile of a dishonest person. To meet Objectives 3A and 3B, I I have tested the effectiveness and efficiency of alternative systems to deter cheating behavior – including crackdown policies (i.e. high frequency controls in a limited period of time). The results show that concentrated crackdowns are less effective and efficient than random controls. In addition, I find that prolonged crackdowns reduce fare-dodging during the period of intense monitoring but induces a burst of fraud as soon as they are withdrawn. Similarly, the announcement of this type of controls has only a short-term effect and tends to accentuate fraud outside the period of control.
In the remaining last 6 months of research, I worked on the objectives of Work Package 2 (WP2). In particular, I designed and conducted an experiment to study the relationship between dishonesty, competition and social information in line with Objectives 2A, 2B, and 2C. After a preliminary analysis of the results, we found that men and women do not display the same dishonest behavior under competition and respond differently to the provision of social information. To further investigate these gender effects, Prof. Villeval and I decided to run additional experiments which were not initially planned in the Work Package. These experiments are scheduled for autumn 2017, and, therefore, will not be part of the final report.
The publication of papers in highly-ranked peer-reviewed international journals constituted the most important channel for the dissemination of the aforementioned results. All papers were presented in major scientific conferences, internal and external seminars, and workshops.The economic and policy implications of my findings have been disseminated for a general audience during some outreach activities such as the participation to the ""Nuit Européenne des Chercheurs"" and the EURAXESS roadshow. I have also written a non-scientific article for a local magazine and given an interview for the CORTEX mag in order to give visibility to the outcomes of my research activities to the general public."
