My research revolves around three key themes: financial crises, economic voting, and the role of media in shaping public perceptions of economic issues, particularly income inequality. I examine how political incentives influence financial crises and shape its aftermath, how economic conditions shape electoral outcomes, and how media coverage affects public attitudes about the economy. In addition to my academic research, I contribute to policy discussions on Indonesia, addressing topics such as environmental political preferences, fiscal decentralization, and subnational democracy. 

JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS

“From Margins to Headlines: Analyzing the Determinants of Increased Media Focus on Income Inequality“ (with Florence Bouvet). 2025. Social Science Quarterly 106(3). See working paper version here and supplementary appendix here. 

“Do Voters in Developing and Transitional Democracies Care about Income Inequality?“ (with Florence Bouvet). Economics & Politics 36(1),245-274. March 2024.

“How do Economic Conditions Influence Support for Democracy?“ Muslim Politics Review 2(1): 88-111, June 2023.

“Correlates of Crisis Induced Credit Market Discipline: The Roles of Democracy, Veto Players, and Government Turnover.“ (with Eric Chiu, Greg Richey, Jake Meyer and Thomas D. Willett).  Open Economies Review 33(1): 61-87. February 2022. 

“What influences subnational competitiveness in a decentralised Indonesia?“ (with Mulya Amri). Journal of Southeast Asian Economies 38(3): 337-357. December 2021.   

“Political Credit Cycles.” (with Andreas Kern).  Economics & Politics 33 (1): 76-108, March 2021.

“Do Financial Crises Discipline Future Credit Growth?” (with Eric Chiu, Greg Richey, and Thomas D. Willett).   Journal of Financial Economic Policy 9 (3). September 2017.

“Policy Inconsistencies and the Political Economy of Currency Crises.” (with Thomas D. Willett). Journal of International Commerce, Economics and Policy 8 (1), February 2017.  

“Capital Surges and Credit Booms: How Tight is the Relationship?”  Open Economies Review 27 (4):637-60, 2016. (with Greg M. Richey and Thomas D. Willett).

“Trade and Welfare Compensation :The Missing Links.” International Interactions 40(5):631-656, 2014 (with Eunyoung Ha and Dong-wook Lee).

“The Political Economy of Financial Sector Supervision and Banking Crisis.” European Law Journal 18(1):24-43, 2012 (with Brett M. Kocher).

“International Comparisons of Bank Regulation, Liberalization, and Banking Crises.” Journal of Financial Economic Policy 3(4):322-339, 2011(with Penny Angkinand Prabha and Clas Wihlborg).

“The Developmental Gap between the ASEAN Member Countries: The Perspective of Indonesia.” ASEAN Economic Bulletin 24(1): 45-71, 2007 (with Dionisius Narjoko).

EDITOR REVIEWED BOOK CHAPTERS & BOOK REVIEW

Amri, Puspa D. (2022). “International Political Economy and the Study of Financial Crises.”  In A Research Agenda for International Political Economy: New Directions & Promising Paths. Ed. D. Deese. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Amri, Puspa D. (2022). “Socio-Economic Conditions and Indonesian Democratic Support.” In Political Culture and Societal Exceptionalism in Indonesian and Korean Democratization. Ed. B. Howe.  Springer Nature/Palgrave Macmillan

Amri, Puspa D. and Mochamad Pasha. (2020). “The Economic Dimensions of Indonesia’s Democratic Quality.”  In From Stagnation to Regression? Indonesian Democracy After Twenty Years. Eds. T. Power and E. Warburton. Singapore: ISEAS Publishing.

Review of Thomas Oatley, A Political Economy of American Hegemony (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015). Perspectives on Politics, 15(3), September 2017: 933-934.

WORKING PAPERS

Environmental Issues and Political Preferences in the 2019 Indonesian Elections
With Kurnya Roesad and Yose Rizal Damuri, CSIS Indonesia Working Paper, April 2020.

We use a survey framing the environment as a voting issue to explore public environmental preferences in Indonesia, a country facing severe challenges such as deforestation, pollution, and extreme weather. Policies to address these issues require strong public support, particularly given Indonesia’s reliance on environmentally harmful industries. Evidence from Indonesia, unlike other developing nations like Brazil and Vietnam, remains limited. Our nationally representative survey, conducted ahead of the 2019 elections, reveals weak overall awareness of environmental issues but significant exposure to localized problems such as pollution, floods, and droughts. While voters recognize immediate environmental concerns, they are less attentive to long-term issues like forest degradation. Notably, favorable perceptions of the government’s environmental track record correlate with greater support for the incumbent president and his party in legislative elections. Surprisingly, education and income have little impact on the strength of environmental preferences. These findings highlight the importance of addressing short-term, localized environmental concerns to mobilize public support for broader environmental initiatives in Indonesia.

Conceptualizing and measuring local democracy in Indonesia: a pilot study of 70 districts, 2008-2020
With Amalinda Savirani. January 2025. Draft available upon request.

Abstract. This paper introduces the Indonesian Local Electoral Democracy Index (ILEDI), a new dataset that measures subnational democracy across 70 districts in Indonesia, spanning three election cycles from 2008 to 2020. The ILEDI framework draws on the subnational democracy literature and is tailored to reflect distinctive features of Indonesian local politics. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, we examine electoral competitiveness across districts and explore case studies to contextualize the findings from the aggregate index. Interestingly, our results reveal that some districts with low ILEDI scores, such as Banyuwangi and Semarang, are widely recognized for innovative public policies. This highlights the need to refine measures of subnational democracy to account for Indonesia’s unique political environment, characterized by weak party institutionalization, minimal partisan differences, and fluid coalitions formed by local executives. 

 WORK IN PROGRESS 

Distorted Realities: Media Coverage, Perceptions of Income Inequality, and Redistribution Preferences
With Florence Bouvet. To be presented at the 2025 International Political Economy Society Conference, October 2025. 

This paper examines the role of media coverage in amplifying public concerns about income inequality. Using a novel dataset of over 400 million news articles from eight OECD countries (1981–2021) and individual-level survey data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), we examine the extent to which media reporting on income inequality impacts individuals’ perceptions of inequality, the extent of their misperception of income inequality , and their support for redistribution policies. Our findings reveal that heightened media coverage is associated with increased perceptions that income inequality is too high, greater overestimation of actual inequality among those who self-identify as far left or far right, and stronger demands for government redistribution.  We also find that in societies where upward mobility is seen as attainable, people are less likely to view income inequality as problematic.

Is there a Credit Constituency? Inequality, Bank Credit, and Voting in Advanced Economies
With Rocky Intan. Presented at the 2024 International Political Economy Society Conference, November 2024. 

To what extent do voters punish incumbents for lack of bank credit? While scholars have increasingly found evidence in support of political credit cycles — incumbents manipulating bank credit prime ahead of elections, we know relatively little about whether voters care enough to punish incumbents for lack of credit. Leveraging disaggregated credit data by type of borrower (household vs firms) and further by sector (household mortgage vs non-mortgage credit), this paper investigates variations in the credit constituency hypothesis. Using private bank credit data in 37 OECD economies from 1990 to 2016, we test whether: 1) there is a positive relationship between bank credit and the vote share of the incumbent party from one election to another, 2) the effects of bank credit on the vote share of the incumbent party depends on the type of borrower (households vs firms). While aggregate credit growth does not have a statistically significant coefficient with respect to incumbent support, disaggregated bank credit data reveal that household credit—especially consumer credit—shows a significant correlation with voting patterns.