There is some really interesting work (which won a Nobel prize) on used car sales,

The Market for Lemons

This is about lying specifically in the context of economic transactions in the presence of information asymmetry.

The big takeaway is that when there is quality uncertainty and information assymetry, lying sellers drive truth-telling sellers out of the market, which is why some markets like used-car sales become associated with lying. Dan Pink has some great analysis in his latest book about how and why that is changing.

Lying in general, understood in economic terms is too complex to admit a simple answer. You're asking for a general theory of deception framed in economic terms. I don't think something like this is possible yet. It's all little domain-specific ideas and theories so far.

Here's another one I recently learned of:

Underpromising and Overdelivering: Strategic Implications of Word of Mouth

It examines the underpromise/overeliver vs. overpromise/underdeliver type mechanisms in branding.

And here's another one. Studies of how low quality norms come to prevail (kinda loosely related)

http://www.sociology.ox.ac.uk/do...

The closest to a general theory anyone has come is probably the iterated prisoner's dilemma model, but that's much more about trust than lying per se.

It's an excellent topic for a lot of further investigation. I think who lies/when in simple cases will be easy to study and theorize about. The hard part will be to understand how people lie in economic terms (i.e. how they come up with specific stories in place of the truth).