Mr Royyan Djayusman

Research project: Muslims' Giving Behaviour and Efficient Partnership in Religious Contribution: Evidence from Indonesia

Abstract

The main reasons behind presenting this study is a vast gap between the potential zakat (Islamic almsgiving) estimation and the total amount of zakat funds collected by zakat institutions. Some recent studies indicate that most Muslims prefer to donate their giving directly rather than to charity organisations. Additionally, the existence of a free-rider issue is observed in religious contributions, which causes more gap. The main research aims to answer the question: How do Indonesian Muslims behave towards the religious contribution decision-making process with ambiguity? And which partnership model could be best fit the actual giving behaviour and the optimal contribution? To answer the questions, this project will employ the prospect theory, ambiguity and team production theory.

The primary data is obtained from a survey experiment through an online questionnaire. The survey focuses on the Indonesian Muslim population with a sample size of 1,500 participants selected randomly with cluster sampling based on islands. On the other hand, the secondary data will support a quantitative analysis in measuring the influence of social condition, information, sharing rules on the contribution at the household level by using regression with longitudinal data analysis provided in the IFLS-5 data.

This study is designed to add knowledge on the theory of behavioural economics among Muslim in religious contributions. Furthermore, it is also intended to investigate the behavioural decision making of the believers, which are potentially influenced by social identity, social structure, group size to public goods literature, biassed information, and religious component in the society. Moreover, this research also provides a better understanding of the possible impact of the sharing rules, cost of effort, and utility function in social partnership and team production theory. Eventually, this project is expected to contribute better documentation of actual Muslims' giving behaviour and an optimal model in religious contributions.

Keywords: religious contribution, Islamic philanthropy, partnership, giving behaviour.