---
title: "The lost-wallet experiment: what 17,000 \"lost\" wallets in 40 countries revealed about honesty"
url: https://magnanimo.us/daily/2026-10-25-lost-wallet-study/
description: "Researchers handed in 17,000 lost wallets in 40 countries. More money made people more likely to return them, and almost nobody predicted it. Here's why."
type: daily
section: "Today's Kindness"
published: 2026-10-25
updated: 2026-10-25
author: The Magnanimous Editors
publisher: Magnanimous (https://magnanimo.us/)
---
Today's Kindness · Science of giving

# The lost-wallet experiment: what 17,000 "lost" wallets in 40 countries revealed about honesty

Economists expected cash to tempt people. Instead, wallets with money came back more often in nearly every country. Even the experts guessed wrong.

By [The Magnanimous Editors](https://magnanimo.us/about/#editors) · Published Sunday, October 25, 2026 · 3 min read · 6 linked sources

Picture a stranger walking up to the counter of a bank, a post office or a hotel, handing over a wallet they say they found on the street, and leaving in a hurry. Inside is a contact email for the owner and, sometimes, cash. The person behind the counter now has a choice nobody will ever check. What most of them chose is one of the most striking findings in the science of honesty.

## The experiment

Economists Alain Cohn, Michel André Maréchal, David Tannenbaum and Christian Lukas Zünd ran that scene again and again. In their 2019 *Science* paper, ["Civic honesty around the globe,"](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aau8712) they describe turning in "more than 17,000 lost wallets containing varying amounts of money" at public and private institutions in 355 cities across 40 countries. Then they measured one thing: whether the person who took the wallet emailed the owner to return it.

Standard economic intuition says cash should be a temptation. The more money in a wallet, the more reason to pocket it and stay quiet. The researchers found the opposite. In the paper's words: "In virtually all countries, citizens were more likely to return wallets that contained more money."

The spread between countries was wide. Summarizing the study, a 2022 paper in *Frontiers in Psychology* [noted](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9092975/) that wallets with money were reported most often in Sweden (82%), Denmark (82%), Norway (80%) and Switzerland (80%), and least often in Mexico (16%) and Peru (14%). And in follow-up coverage, [CBS News](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lost-wallet-experiment-hidden-cameras/) reported that "more than 70% of lost wallets were returned if they had large amounts of money inside."

## Nobody predicted it

Perhaps the best part: the authors asked people to guess the result beforehand. According to the paper, "neither nonexperts nor professional economists were able to predict this result." Most of us, it turns out, are more cynical about strangers than strangers deserve.

Why would more money make people more honest? The authors' data point to two forces working together: "altruistic concerns and an aversion to viewing oneself as a thief," both of which grow as the amount at stake rises. Keeping a wallet with nothing in it feels like nothing. Keeping one with cash in it feels like stealing, and most people don't want to be that person, even when no one would ever know.

## The honest caveats

Good studies invite good arguments, and this one got several. The study counted only one behavior: whether the recipient emailed the owner. Researchers in China argued that misses a lot. In a 2023 *PNAS* [replication in China](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10629568/), Yang and colleagues found email response rates similar to the original study, but when they went back to collect the wallets, 77.8% were safely kept for the owner. Their explanation is that in more collectivist cultures, safekeeping may be the expected norm. Cohn's team [replied](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10710075/) that the collectivism finding did not hold up to reanalysis.

A 2025 *Scientific Reports* [study](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11779863/) added a simpler point: many people in China rarely use email. In the original study, it notes, the reporting rate for a wallet without money in China was 7%. When finders were helped to reach the owner on WeChat instead, 59.3% reported the wallet, though the authors caution that the designs differ too much for a direct comparison.

So country rankings deserve a grain of salt. The headline finding, that more money in the wallet brought more honesty almost everywhere, is the part that has stood up. For more on why people do the decent thing, see our guide to the [science of giving](https://magnanimo.us/science-of-giving/).

## Today's act

**The act:** Be the person in the study who sends the email. Return something to its rightful owner today.

- Give back something you borrowed and forgot about: a book, a dish, a tool.
- If a cashier hands you too much change, or a bill leaves something off, say so.
- Find something lost? Go one step past handing it in. Look for a name, email or phone number and reach out yourself.
- Make it easy for honest finders: put a contact email in your wallet and an "if found" note on your phone's lock screen.

## Sources

1. [Science — Cohn, Maréchal, Tannenbaum & Zünd, Civic honesty around the globe (2019)](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aau8712)
2. [Frontiers in Psychology — Gavreliuc et al., To steal or not to steal (2022)](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9092975/)
3. [CBS News — Lost wallet experiment with hidden cameras (Dec. 2020)](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lost-wallet-experiment-hidden-cameras/)
4. [PNAS — Yang et al., Unraveling controversies over civic honesty measurement: An extended field replication in China (2023)](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10629568/)
5. [PNAS — Tannenbaum, Maréchal & Cohn, A closer look at civic honesty in collectivist cultures (2023)](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10710075/)
6. [Scientific Reports — Hung et al., Randomized studies in China show that studying and promoting civic honesty needs to consider local norms (2025)](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11779863/)

Today's act

Return something today: a borrowed item, extra change a cashier gave you, or a lost thing you can get back to its owner.

[How to do it](https://magnanimo.us/daily/2026-10-25-lost-wallet-study/#todays-act) · [Draw another kindness](https://magnanimo.us/kindness-generator/)

## Go deeper

Everyday generosity

### [The science of giving: what research says about generosity and happiness](https://magnanimo.us/science-of-giving/)

The studies behind "giving makes you happy," what held up when researchers re-ran them, and how to use the findings without overselling them.

7 min read

Everyday generosity

### [75 random acts of kindness ideas, from free to five dollars](https://magnanimo.us/random-acts-of-kindness-ideas/)

Seventy-five small, specific kindnesses sorted by budget and setting, plus what research says about why they land harder than you expect.

7 min read

## More from Today's Kindness

October 24 · Everyday kindness

### [Make A Difference Day: the fourth Saturday of October, and the idea that one day is enough to start](https://magnanimo.us/daily/2026-10-24-make-a-difference-day/)

A Sunday newspaper magazine turned one October Saturday into a national day of service. The sponsors have moved on. The idea still works.

Today's act Give two hours of your Saturday to a local project: a cleanup, a food bank shift, or a chore for a neighbor who can't do it.

October 23 · Everyday kindness

### [Dolly Parton's Imagination Library: a free book in the mailbox, every month, since 1995](https://magnanimo.us/daily/2026-10-23-imagination-library/)

It started as a gift to one Tennessee county and a tribute to a father who couldn't read. Thirty years later it mails millions of books a month.

Today's act Check whether the Imagination Library serves your ZIP code, then enroll a child you know or chip in to sponsor one.

October 22 · Food & community

### [Food drive season is here. Here's what pantries actually need most](https://magnanimo.us/daily/2026-10-22-food-drive-most-needed/)

Canned protein, peanut butter and low-sodium staples top the lists. Glass jars and bake-sale leftovers don't. And cash quietly beats them all.

Today's act Look up your local food bank's most-wanted list, then give either three items from it or the $5 you'd have spent on them.

[Every entry in Today's Kindness →](https://magnanimo.us/daily/)