While it’s not immediately obvious what classifies a place as “honest”, research from Bocconi University suggests that honest people are more inclined to want to live there. The phenomenon, known as the “honesty drain”, is partly responsible for the human capital and economic losses from areas where there is a greater tendency to break the rules.

The “Honesty Drain” is when honest folks leave places where cheating is common, and this has a bad impact on the quality of local leaders and government.

Regional honesty

Researchers have noticed that some parents in Italy, especially in certain areas, lie about their children’s birthdates on official documents. This creates an unusual drop in recorded births in December and a strange increase in January.

The researchers used these differences in birth records to measure how honest people are. They found that folks who move away from places with a lot of cheating are less likely to lie about their kids’ birthdates compared to those who stay in those areas.

So, it seems like honest people tend to move to places where there’s less cheating. Over time, this changes the overall honesty level in an area and is linked to lower levels of education, productivity, and income growth.

Faking it

In certain parts of Italy, especially those with deep historical ties to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, there’s a widespread practice of faking one’s birthdate. One reason for this might be that in such areas, it’s more advantageous to be considered younger.

In general, it’s seen as a good thing to delay starting school, military service, and gaining full independence. But we can’t say for sure why there’s a difference between the North and South of Italy in this regard. What we do know is that people who move from the South to the North are less likely to fake their birthdays than those who stay behind.

However, the extent to which people fake their birthdays varies a lot within the Southern regions. In other words, the impact of moving on this behavior is different in different places. Some areas have seen a big increase in faked birthdays due to migration, while others have seen less fakery. This variation allows us to study how a loss of honesty is linked to the quality of political leadership and economic performance.

Overall, the researchers found that a decrease in honesty is connected to lower-quality politicians. Specifically, mayors and other elected officials in places where faked birthdays are common are more likely to be fakers themselves. In this way, the honesty of elected officials closely matches the honesty of the people who vote for them.

“What is more striking, though,” the authors conclude, “is that municipalities who suffered a more severe honesty drain are also more likely to be dismissed due to severe wrongdoings such as corruption or even involvement in forms of organized crime. In terms of economic performance, honesty drain correlates with significantly lower scores of earning growth, firm value added and labor productivity.”