The honesty of a country's population is linked to its economic growth, study finds

'Countries that develop cultures putting a high value on honesty are able to reap economic gains'

A coin-flip experiment was used to test people's honesty (Rex Features)

The British population is one of the most honest in the world, a new study has found.

It also established a link between how honest a country was and its economic growth by finding that richer countries tended to have the most truthful people.

The study, entitled 'Honesty and beliefs about honesty in 15 countries' from the University of East Anglia, examined 1,500 people from countries across the world in two experiments.

The first experiment was a coin-flip test in which everyone had been offered a financial reward if their coin landed on heads.

But participants from the UK were found to be the most truthful with only 3.4 per cent being dishonest about which side their coin landed.

People from South Africa and Portugal were also quite truthful, according to the experiment. China, at 70 per cent, was the most dishonest country, behind Japan, South Korea and India.

In the second experiment, the participants were asked to refrain from looking up the answers to three difficult music questions on the internet. If participants got more than one question correct, it indicated that they had cheated by researching the answers.

The UK ranked as the second most honest country after Japan. People from Turkey were the least truthful, behind China, India and Portugal.

The graphs show how each country ranked in terms of honesty for both experiments (David Hugh-Jones/University of East Anglia)

Dr Hugh-Jones, a senior lecturer in economics at the University of East Anglia and author of the study, said although the honesty of countries related to their economic growth, the relationship was now weaker than before 1950.

“One explanation is that when institutions and technology are underdeveloped, honesty is important as a substitute for formal contract enforcement. Countries that develop cultures putting a high value on honesty are able to reap economic gains.”

“Later, this economic growth itself improves institutions and technology, making contracts easier to monitor and enforce, so that a culture of honesty is no longer necessary for further growth.”

Dr Hugh-Jones also found that people “were more pessimistic about the honesty of people in their own country than of people in other countries”.

The reason behind this could be because people were more exposed to news stories about dishonesty in their own country.