Property rights and honest behavior

Matteo Rizzolli (LUMSA University in Rome)
Plinio Limata (LUMSA)
Marco Fabbri (University of Bologna)

Abstract

Do formalized property rights increase honest behavior? We ran a
lab-in-the-field experiment with a standard dice-in-a-cup task in the same
villages of rural Benin where, ten years before, a unique large-scale randomized
control trial introducing the formalization of property rights was carried
out. Results show that holding formal certificates of private property
rights increases preferences for truth-telling. This finding supports the
argument that laws and moral behavior work in synergy and that preferences
are not exogenous but shaped by institutions (Bowles, 2016).

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