Rogue Economics

Honesty Cafes- can it work?

As the New York Times recently reported, the attorney general's office in Indonesia has been opening thousands of "honesty cafes" as part of its anticorruption campaign.

The idea is that these cashier-free cafes will teach people to be honest and curb the country's corruption problem (which pervades business, politics, and education) by inducing residents - especially the young - to get into the habit of practicing honesty. As the Times reports, "...the cafes are meant to force people to think constantly about whether they are being honest and, presumably, make them feel guilty if they are not."

But may be,

'With honesty cafés widespread, residents will have more temptations to cheat, more occasion to cheat, and maybe this will make it such that they will find it easier to cheat again in other contexts.

Maybe these cafes are a good idea, maybe it will not have any effect, but I worry that it might make things worse.