It's Time to Cheat!

We run a laboratory experiment testing the correlation between time preferences and cheating at the individual level. In our experiment cheating increases the earnings of those who commit it, and it only entails a moral cost for the cheater. By presenting the first study that measures at the individual level both the propensity to cheat and time preferences, we are able to determine whether or not cheaters are more likely to be more present-biased or to have a higher discount factor. Our hypothesis is that cheating is higher among individuals who attribute more importance to the present. We observe widespread cheating, and that cheating prevails among subjects who display present bias and overconfidence. Interestingly, a non-negligible fraction of the cheaters we observe are not driven by monetary reward. For these individuals the impact of overconfidence and present bias also seems different. Furthermore, we report that males seem more likely to cheat mostly for a monetary reward, whereas females may cheat also for other reasons, signaling that they are less interested in monetary rewards