This study aims to see whether the shift from autocracy to democracy in Indonesia influences individual behaviour.

Existing literature stresses how the changing of political institutions in Indonesia, from the kingdom era to the colonial period and subsequent independence, has not changed corrupt behaviour. This paper revisits the question in the context of the political shift from autocracy to democracy that occurred in 1998, by measuring individual behaviour through intrinsic honesty.  The mind game (Kajackaite and Gneezy 2017; Jiang 2013) was altered to compare the level of intrinsic honesty of Indonesian people who, due to their age in 1998, could not have been influenced by the autocratic regime, with that of the older generations who for part of their lives were exposed to the autocratic regime.  Consistent with the findings in corruption literature, it was found that democracy did not boost honesty.  The lying behaviour at the individual level is discussed.

This paper is co-authored with Pia Weiss (University of Nottingham) and Thorsten Chmura (Nottingham Trent University)

Speaker: Lury Sofyan (Indonesia Ministry of Finance)