Screening for Honesty

Arbeitspapier

We report the results of a field experiment on honesty conducted on 427 Israeli soldiers fulfilling their mandatory military service. Each soldier rolled a six-sided die in private and reported the outcome to the unit's cadet coordinator. For every point reported, the soldier received an additional half hour early release from the army base on Thursday afternoon. We find that the higher a soldier's military entrance score, the more honest he is on average. Moreover, to the extent that honesty is a valued trait, regression discontinuity analysis reveals that the Israeli military has optimally set the threshold score to qualify to be an officer. Our results bear important implications for the design of screening tests that evaluate employee honesty.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 8286

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Field Experiments ; Personnel Economics: Firm Employment Decisions; Promotions
• Subject: experimental methods ; honesty ; personnel selection ; soldiers ; high non-monetary stakes ; regression discontinuity design

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Ruffle, Bradley ; Tobol, Yossi
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2014

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/101902
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET