How honest areAsians today?Do people in the region's smaller communities have more integritythan residents of the megacities?What motivates people to do the right

thing?

Over a four-monthperiod late last year,we tried to find out with a simple test.We visited 14cities,towns and communities in nine countries.In each,we"lost"tenordinary

wallets filled withthe local equivalent of ￥10to￥50 in cash,a local address and phonenumber,classified ads from local newspapers,handwritten shoppinglists,everything

needed to make thewallets look real.Then we waited to see what would happen.

The results weremore revealing than we expected.Overall,out of 140 wallets we dropped acrossAsia,80 were returned一 57percent. A similar experiment in Europeresulted

in almost identicaltotals.Out of 200 wallets dropped in Europe,116 were returnedes 一58 percent.In the United States,thereturn rate was slightly higher:80 out of 120一67

percent.

In the US,only oneperson declined to take the money in the wallet when it was offered as a rewardfor being honest.In Europe,more than a quarter refused to take the

money.In Asia,astaggering 72 percent of those who returned the wallets一 58 of 80一saidno to any reward.

"I cannotaccept a reward for having done the right thing,"said a university studentin Seoul. Amongthose who did accept the money,several said they intended to donate it to

a charity orreligious organization.

Within Asia we foundother interesting results.Two-thirds of all our wallets were retrieved bymen.But once the wallet was picked up,it made little difference whether the

finder was male orfe-male.In our study,58 percent of the women who picked up wallets returnedthem and so did 56 percent of the men.

Are the people in Asia's giant population centers less honest than in itssmaller cities?It seemed so. The lowest combined rate of return一still a respectable 50 percent一was in

the three largestcities visiteD.Seoul,Bombay and Manila. The best rates ofreturn were in the less populous cities一 Singapore;Inchon,Korea;Trivandrum,India;and

Kamakura,Japan一with populations ranging from 180,000to 2.8 million.People in lesspopulous cities tend to be more honest.

A.Right

B.Wrong

C.Not mentioned