Emons, Winand (September 2001). Perjury versus Truth-Revelation: Quantity or Quality of Testimony (Diskussionsschriften 01-03). Bern: Universität Bern Volkswirtschaftliches Institut
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In trials witnesses often slant their testimony to advance their interests. To obtain truthful testimony, courts rely on perjury rules. We show that perjury rules are not truth-revealing and we derive a truth-revealing mechanism for the same set of restrictions under which perjury rules operate. If the judge uses a truth-revealing mechanism, he will get less testimony than under perjury because the defendant will not present a witness with unfavorable news; however, testimony is of higher quality. We show that a court striving for precision prefers truth-revelation to perjury. If the court is rational in the Bayesian sense, chances for the defendant to prevail are the same under perjury and truth-revelation from an ex ante point of view. Truth-revelation thus dominates perjury even when the lower quantity
of testimony is taken into account.
Item Type: |
Working Paper |
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Division/Institute: |
03 Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences > Department of Economics 03 Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences > Department of Economics > Institute of Economics > Economic Theory |
UniBE Contributor: |
Emons, Winand |
Subjects: |
300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 330 Economics |
Series: |
Diskussionsschriften |
Publisher: |
Universität Bern Volkswirtschaftliches Institut |
Language: |
English |
Submitter: |
Aline Lehnherr |
Date Deposited: |
15 Apr 2020 11:52 |
Last Modified: |
05 Dec 2022 15:37 |
JEL Classification: |
D82, K41, K42 |
BORIS DOI: |
10.7892/boris.142428 |
URI: |
https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/142428 |
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