No bill, no cashier, no penalty. Indonesia set up unmanned honesty cafes, where patrons simply put the money in bag. Would similar honour systems work in India?
Opportunity to Cheat
Dan Ariely, a behavioural economist, says about Indonesia’s experiment in a blog on MIT’s Technology Review Web site: “With honesty cafés widespread, residents will have more temptations to cheat, more occasion to cheat, and maybe… find it easier to cheat again in other contexts.”
(This story appears in the 17 July, 2009 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)