Deception and Misreporting in a Social Program

Abstract

We investigate empirically the extent of misreporting in a povertyalleviation program in which self-reported information, followed by a household visit, is used to determine eligibility.In the model we propose and estimate, underreporting may be due to a deception motive, and overreporting to an embarrassment motive.We …nd that underreporting of goods and desirable home characteristics is widespread, and that overreporting is common with respect to goods linked to social status.Larger program bene…ts encourage underreporting and discourage overreporting.The e¤ect of bene…ts on underreporting is signi…cant under a variety of speci…cations.We also estimate the relative costs of lying and embarrassment for di¤erent goods.