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Badri Munir Sukoco
Professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business
Universitas Airlangga

Indonesia's independence has entered its 75th year. The entire Indonesian people should give thanks, because various major events that were feared would divide Indonesia did not happen. The prolonged post-independence conflict, G30S PKI, Reform and the Economic Crisis which became multidimensional in 1998, and the 2008 Economic Crisis were some of the major events and had the potential to cause disintegration of the nation. However, Indonesia remained firmly united, and even became the world's 7th largest economic power in 2019 (???????????????????? ????????????? ?????????????????? ???????????????????, 2019). This underlies the launch of the vision of the Advanced Indonesia Cabinet to be free from ???????????????????????? ???????????????????????? ?????????????????? and lead Indonesia to become a developed country by 2045.

But Pandemi Covid-19 that has hit the world since the beginning of 2020 changed everything. ??????????????????????????????????? Accompanied by restrictions on human mobility making the flight volume down to 82%, 7.5 million flights are canceled, the decline in revenue reaches 55%, and the loss of work for 50 million people worldwide (???????????????????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Of course the participating industry is very large, especially tourism, hotels, restaurants, and land transportation services (passengers). The movement of goods and services through exports and imports has decreased volume between 13-23% (World Bank, 2020).

The above conditions make the real world economic recession, no exception Indonesia. According to Airlangga Hartarto, Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Indonesia experienced a growth of -5.32% in the second quarter, and was projected to -1% in the third quarter of this year. This condition is exacerbated by the slow execution of state spending, making President Joko Widodo scold his maid on the last few occasions.

In general, economic growth is a comparison of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) between this year compared to last year. GDP consists of household consumption, investment, state spending, and exports minus imports. The description above shows the last 3 factors difficult to expect, so that household consumption is the biggest hope for Indonesia to be separated from the recession.

How can Indonesia increase household consumption to avoid an economic recession?

???????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????
???????????????????????????????????? ???????????????????????????????????? (2019), a book written by Prof. Robert J. Shiller (winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2013) argued that studying trending stories is a first and important step for policy makers to understand the economic behavior of individuals and society. The ability of policy makers to predict, prepare and reduce the impact of economic crises (even recessions or depressions) will increase by understanding Narrative Economics.

There are 2 elements that will influence ????????????????????????????????????????????? ???? ???????? ??????????????????????????????????????????: First, the story ?????? ??????????-?????????-???????????????ℎ which makes the story spread. Second, the efforts made to create a new story that spreads (???????????? ?????????????????????????? ??????????????? ?????????????????????????) or make the story spread even more (? ??????????????? ??????????????? ?????????????????????). Whether the story conveyed is true or false (ℎ????????????), it will be transmitted by ????????????????-??????? ?-???????????????ℎ, news media, and of course ???????????????????????? ?????????????????????. The economy will be boosted because existing narratives, both positive and negative, influence how consumers will consume, invest, save and carry out other economic activities. Even though Narrative Economics is important, many policy makers and economists pay little attention to it.

The size that can be used to see what stories are in the community are ???????????????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????? - cci or ?????????????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????? - BCI. Based on the data released by ????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ???????? ??????????????????????????????????? ????????-?????????????????????????????????????? ????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? (OECD, 2020), Indonesia has the highest CCI in December 2019 (100.39) and January 2020 (100.22), even compared to the average 2019 What about China, the country of origin of Pandemi? Throughout 2019 it has an average CCI of 99.15, and fell to the lowest level in February 2020 (85.43). In July, the level began to rise to the level of 97.94. Before the occurrence of Pandemic, the United States (US) had an average of 99.35 on CCI. Interestingly, despite the number of positive patients Covid-19 and died the largest in the world, the CCI level rose to 97.47 months ago (the lowest in April: 92.63). This will result in the growth of domestic consumption in China and the US is higher than Indonesia.

For BCI, the average for 37 OECD member countries was 98.39 in the last 6 months. Meanwhile, Indonesia began to decline from the beginning of 2020 to a level of 98.37 (June), down slightly compared to the 2019 average (99.57). Meanwhile, the US experienced a decline for 3 consecutive months (March, April and May 2020), interestingly in June it actually increased to the level of 100.18. China experienced its lowest BCI level in February (94.52) (much lower than the 2019 average of 98.11). However, in June it increased to 99.44. Of course, this increasingly improving trend at the BCI level (OECD, US, China and Indonesia) shows that business people have a high level of optimism that the economic recession caused by the Covid-19 pandemic will end soon.

In addition, a bi-weekly survey conducted by McKinsey in 45 countries shows that residents of South Korea, South Africa and Mexico will reduce their household spending by > 20% in the next 2 months. Interestingly, Indonesia has the highest level in the world for residents who plan to increase their household expenditure by > 25%. In terms of optimism, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and China have the most optimistic population compared to other countries. Indonesia has an optimism rating of 7th, below India.

Recommendations
On the 75th anniversary of the Independence of the Republic of Indonesia, we are being tested together with countries around the world with the Covid-19 pandemic and recession which, if mismanaged, could become an economic depression. Economic recovery assigned to the Economic Recovery Task Force needs to understand society's economic behavior, and Narrative Economics can be an effective alternative approach.

According to the Central Statistics Agency (2019), household consumption contributes 56.62% of Indonesia's GDP. Of this number, ???????????????????????? ????????????????????? (MC) Indonesia, numbering 52 million people, accounts for half of household consumption (World Bank, 2020). What should be of concern to the government is that MC 1 (Rp. 1.2-3.2 million per person per month) has a proportion of 90%, while MC 2 (Rp. 3.2-6 million) only has 10%. The current recession is very risky for MC 1 to go down to ???????????????????????????????? ???????????????????????? ????????????????????? (AMC, Rp. 532 thousand-1.2 million) so that household consumption in Indonesia is difficult to grow. Of course, the acceleration of state spending by IDR. 1,700 trillion in Quarters 3 and 4 could be a hope, especially direct assistance to the community and other programs for SMEs to increase consumption and stimulate the economy.

The description above shows that Indonesia has promising conditions to recover from the economic recession. The optimism possessed by the Indonesian population accompanied by a willingness to shop is the key to increasing household consumption in Indonesia. Creating new hope and optimism that is believed by the public (both consumers and business people) and making it viral is the main recipe for Indonesia to soon be free from economic recession. And of course health protocols are the main prerequisite so that Indonesia does not experience a second wave of Covid-19 and instead prolongs the economic recession that will be experienced.

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