A few years back a company in Scandinavia tried to sell candy bars at workplaces by leaving a tray of candy bars and a jar for the money.<p>They found that it worked well at low-income workplaces (90-95% honesty) but poorly at high-income workplaces (20-30% honesty).<p>It appears that at least by some metrics, honesty is inversely proportional to income.
To me, this just illustrates the old maxim a fool and their money are soon parted. In that sense it is more a measure of monetary altruism than honesty. No surprise that people who value money more than others--Wall Street Bankers--are less altruistic with it.
I'd love to see someone try to sell cars this way in both, a high income as well as a low income context. Honesty may not be the absolute value we/i'd like to think it is.