How likely are you to return a found wallet?

How honest are people likely to be?

In research results published six years ago in the journal Science, researchers wanted to examine the “trade-off between honesty and self-interest” so they “visited 355 cities in 40 countries and turned in a total of 17,303 wallets.”

The wallets contained varying amounts of cash or no cash at all, all in denominations specific to the country where they were "lost." The rate of return was different depending on the country with 76% of people in Switzerland returning a wallet while only 14% did so in China.

But in 38 of the 40 countries, one surprising result was that the more money a wallet contained, the more likely it was returned. If little or no money was in the wallet – the equivalent of $13.45 -- their research found, the rate of return averaged between 40% and 51%. In three countries when they increased the amount in the wallets to the equivalent of $94.14, the rate of return increased to 72%. (Only Mexico and Peru did not experience such a jump, according to the researchers.) That far more people returned wallets when more money was involved surprised the researchers.

I’m reminded of the study whenever I find a wallet on the street, something that seems to happen more than I might have anticipated. Then again, I am old and walk around a lot. Most recently, it happened when I saw a wallet on the stoop of a building in Porto, Portugal, not far from the University of Porto, the university upon which J.K. Rowling allegedly based the gowns worn by the students at Hogwarts.

My Portuguese is nonexistent, so I asked the desk clerk at my hotel for help in figuring out if an owner could be identified. There were 10 euros and a college identification card in the wallet. “Ten euros would mean a lot to the student,” the desk clerk said and he assured me he would turn it in to the police.

While there was no phone number in the wallet, perhaps I should have tried to hunt the student down myself to make sure his cash and cards were returned. Instead, I counted on the fact that Portugal was in the top half of the countries when it came to returning lost wallets with little or no money inside. I also counted on the honesty of the desk clerk.

The lost-wallet study reminded me that generally people try to do the right thing when it comes to being honest about such things as lost wallets, at least the 17,303 that these researchers put into the world.

But I’m curious about what readers have done when in such situations. Nothing? Make every effort to find the owner? Has it depended on how much was in the wallet? If so, what amount triggers action?

Send me your stories to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. I’ll share some in an upcoming column. If you’re worried about others learning of your honest response, I will do my best to disguise your real name.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.

(c) 2026 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.