Electoral Accountability and Local Government Spending in Indonesia

Skoufias, Emmanuel ; Narayan, Ambar ; Dasgupta, Basab ; Kaiser, Kai

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISMS;    ALLOCATION OF RESOURCES;    BANK POLICY;    BLOCK GRANTS;    BUDGET ALLOCATION;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-6782
RP-ID  :  WPS6782

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper takes advantage of theexogenous phasing of direct elections in districts andapplies the double-difference estimator to measure impactson (i) human development outcomes and (ii) the pattern ofpublic spending and revenue generation at the districtlevel. The analysis reveals that four years after the switchto direct elections, there have been no significant effectson human development outcomes. However, the estimates of theimpact of Pilkada on health expenditures at the districtlevel suggest that directly elected district officials mayhave become more responsive to local needs at least in thearea of health. The composition of district expenditureschanges considerably during the year and sometimes the yearbefore the elections, shifting toward expenditure categoriesthat allow incumbent district heads running as candidates inthe direct elections to "buy" voter support.Electoral reforms did not lead to higher revenue generationfrom own sources and had no effect on the budget surplus ofdistricts with directly elected heads.