Lies in disguise - A theoretical analysis of cheating

We perform a (psychological) game-theoretic analysis of cheating in the setting proposed by Fischbacher and Föllmi-Heusi (2013). The key assumption, referred to as perceived cheating aversion, is that the decision maker derives disutility in proportion to the amount in which he is perceived to cheat. A particular equilibrium, characterized by three intuitive properties, captures the stylized facts from many experiments (in particular the co-presence of selfish, honest, and partial-lie choices) well.