Religion and Cooperative Attitudes: Evidence from Indonesia

Abstract

This study investigates how religion influences particularized and generalized trust, as well as inter-group discrimination and tolerance, in contemporary Indonesia. I combine the individual-level data of the latest round of the Indonesian Family Life Survey with the national census microdata and other nationally representative datasets to examine two sources of variation through which religion may influence these attitudes: individual religiosity and the community’s religious composition. Religiosity is positively associated with particularized trust and in-group preference, and negatively with religious tolerance. The strengths of the associations between measures of in-group preference (including political preference) and individual religiosity are much stronger than those from gender, education, or per-capita expenditure; they are also strongest among Muslims, the dominant majority in Indonesia. These associations are robust to various identification strategies. Using selection on observables to benchmark the potential bias from selection on unobservables, I find that the selection on unobservables