Does poverty cause lying? An international research team led by behavioral economist Agne Kajackaite from the WZB Berlin Social Science Center, Suparee Boonmanunt (Mahidol University, Bangkok) and Stephan Meier (Columbia Business School) examined whether poverty-stricken individuals were especially prone to acts of dishonesty. The researchers ran a field experiment with rice farmers in Thailand which incentivized cheating during a card game. They found that poverty itself did not cause individuals to act dishonestly.