Civic Honesty Around the Globe (2019) [pdf]

[bumbledraven]

Why isn't Japan on the chart? I'd expect the wallets to be returned there almost 100% of the time.

Here's a quote from patio11 to illustrate my point:

> [Japan] is a place where I could take my daughter to lost-and-found to ask about an acorn, knowing that someone would return an acorn, knowing that someone would clearly expect a lost acorn to be returned and therefore ask.

Source: https://x.com/patio11/status/1179388295479996418 (Oct 2, 2019)

[hangonhn]

I can here to post the same. It literally happened to us in Japan. My wife left her purse with a lot of cash, credit cards, and her passport at a cafe. She was panicking while I reassured her it’s going to be returned. Sure enough after our long walk back, the store clerk recognized us immediately and gave us the purse. Everything was there.

[patio11]

This has been studied and the results comparing Tokyo and NYC are directionally what you'd expect:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=316119

[bwanab]

As an American, that's a pretty embarrassing, if not unexpected, result.