Electoral Accountability and Local Government Spending in Indonesia
This paper takes advantage of the exogenous phasing of direct elections in districts and applies the double-difference estimator to measure impacts on (i) human development outcomes and (ii) the pattern of public spending and revenue generation at...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2014
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2014/02/19006608/electoral-accountability-local-government-spending-indonesia http://hdl.handle.net/10986/17326 |
| Summary: | This paper takes advantage of the
exogenous phasing of direct elections in districts and
applies the double-difference estimator to measure impacts
on (i) human development outcomes and (ii) the pattern of
public spending and revenue generation at the district
level. The analysis reveals that four years after the switch
to direct elections, there have been no significant effects
on human development outcomes. However, the estimates of the
impact of Pilkada on health expenditures at the district
level suggest that directly elected district officials may
have become more responsive to local needs at least in the
area of health. The composition of district expenditures
changes considerably during the year and sometimes the year
before the elections, shifting toward expenditure categories
that allow incumbent district heads running as candidates in
the direct elections to "buy" voter support.
Electoral reforms did not lead to higher revenue generation
from own sources and had no effect on the budget surplus of
districts with directly elected heads. |
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