Page 1. RETRODICTING THE UNCOVERED SET William T. Bianco Department of Political Science Penn Sta... more Page 1. RETRODICTING THE UNCOVERED SET William T. Bianco Department of Political Science Penn State University Michael S. Lynch Gary J. Miller Itai Sened Department of Political Science Washington University in St. Louis ...
This paper presents a methodology to evaluate fiscal decentralization focused on the potential mi... more This paper presents a methodology to evaluate fiscal decentralization focused on the potential mis-targeting of intergovernmental fiscal equalization transfers. The approach builds on an explicit comparison and the summary measurement of different ("horizontal") allocation distributions across states or localities. Whereas formula based fiscal transfers have the merit of being transparent and promoting revenue predictability in fiscal decentralization, in practice, two challenges emerge: (a) What are the appropriate formula designs given the sub-national data constraints evident in most decentralizing developing countries?, and (b) How costly in terms of mis-targeting to the presumed expenditure needs and fiscal capacity are deviations from these types of benchmark formulas (e.g., due to historical factors or the need to meet establishment costs such as civil service wages)? We illustrate this approach through an assessment of Indonesia's evolving intergovernmental fiscal system, instituted in the 2001 Big Bang decentralization. The discussion comes against Indonesia's recent policy decision to fully fund sub-national civil servant wages as part of the base general allocation grant (DAU) transfers, raising questions about both incentive effects for local governments and potential mis-targeting. We identify potential efficiency losses from the DAU's horizontal misallocation from half a dozen alternative scenarios found in the policy dialogue, ranging from 9 to 30 percent -on the order of USD 3.9 billion -of the overall annual size of this large intergovernmental transfer. The scale of these trade-offs highlights the importance of intergovernmental transfers in more general debates in public finance for decentralized countries.
World Bank policy research working paper, Jan 6, 2005
How effective are public interventions in addressing significant regional disparities in formal m... more How effective are public interventions in addressing significant regional disparities in formal manufacturing concentration in a developing economy? We examine the aggregate and sectoral geographic concentration of manufacturing industries for Indonesia, and estimate the impact of factors influencing location choice at the firm level. We distinguish between natural advantage, including infrastructure endowments, wage rates, and natural resource endowments, and production externalities, arising from the co-location of firms in the same or complementary industries. The methodology pays special attention to empirically distinguishing the impact of measured production externalities from unobserved local characteristics. Depending on the sector, we find that a mix of both forms of regional advantage explains the geographic distribution of firms. Based on the estimated location choice model, we illustrate the potential impacts of policy interventions on manufacturing distribution by simulating the effectiveness of transport improvements on relocation of firms. Our findings suggest that improvements in transport infrastructure may only have limited effects in attracting industry to secondary industrial centers outside of Java, especially in sectors already established in leading regions. The findings underscore the challenges for addressing the industrial fortunes of lagging regions, either through local decentralized policy interventions or national policies focused on infrastructure development. * This paper is part of a larger effort to understand the impact of spatial policy interventions on the regional distribution and performance of economic activities, particularly in lagging sub national regions. The research has been funded by a World Bank research program grant on "Urbanization and Quality of Life". We would like to thank the Indonesian Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) for facilitating access to establishment level data, Alejandro Badel for excellent research assistance, and Ani Dasgupta and Neil McCulloch for useful discussions on regional development issues in Indonesia.
World Bank policy research working paper, Jan 7, 2011
This paper was commissioned as a background paper to the World Bank's MENA Social Development Reg... more This paper was commissioned as a background paper to the World Bank's MENA Social Development Regional Study Reducing Conflict Risk and Supporting Peaceful Transition. Special thanks goes to Jorge Araujo and Alan Gelb for comments on previous versions of this paper, and participants comments for an initial version presented at a MENA Region presentation and Economist Forum at World Bank in Washington, DC March and April 2011. Particular thanks goes to Lorena Viñuela for her significant role in helping shape the paper and comparative insights from Latin Americas democratic transition. All views and opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors. All remaining errors are our own.
Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, Apr 1, 2005
... Long-standing tensions between island identities, centred on the town of Tanjung-pinang and t... more ... Long-standing tensions between island identities, centred on the town of Tanjung-pinang and the mainland provincial capital, Pekanbaru, have fuelled claims for separation (Ford 2003). A sense among the islanders of administrative neglect by ...
The widespread presence of local conflict characterizes many developing countries such as Indones... more The widespread presence of local conflict characterizes many developing countries such as Indonesia. Outbreaks of violent conflict not only have direct costs for lives, livelihoods, and material property, but may also have the potential to escalate further. Recent studies on large-scale "headline" conflicts have tended to exclude the systematic consideration of local conflict, in large part due to the absence of representative data at low levels of geographic specification. This paper is a first attempt to correct for that. We evaluate a unique dataset compiled by the Indonesian government, the periodic Village Potential Statistics (PODES), which seeks to map conflict across all of Indonesia's 69,000 villages/neighborhoods. The data confirm that conflict is prevalent beyond well publicized "conflict regions," and that it can be observed across the archipelago. The data report largely violent conflict in 7.1 percent of Indonesia's lowest administrative tier (rural desa and urban kelurahan). Integrating examples from qualitative fieldwork, we assess issues in the measurement of local conflict for quantitative analysis, and adopt an empirical framework to examine potential associations with poverty, inequality, shocks, ethnic and religious diversity/inequality, and community-level associational and security arrangements. The quantitative analysis shows positive correlations between local conflict and unemployment, inequality, natural disasters, changes in sources of incomes, and clustering of ethnic groups within villages. The institutional variables indicate that the presence of places of worship is associated with less conflict, while the presence of religious groups and traditional culture (adat) institutions are associated with conflict. We conclude by suggesting future areas of research, notably on the role of group inequality and inference, and suggest ways to improve the measurement of conflict in the village census. The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the view of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent. Policy Research Working Papers are available online at .
for the many helpful discussions on the topic of the paper. We thank Fitria Fitriani for excellen... more for the many helpful discussions on the topic of the paper. We thank Fitria Fitriani for excellent research assistance.
The paper considers the process of discovery for subsoil resources, including both hard minerals ... more The paper considers the process of discovery for subsoil resources, including both hard minerals and hydrocarbons and estimates its magnitude in recent years, as derived from the sum of extraction and changes in proven reserves. Spurred on by technology change and strong market conditions, discovery has been substantial for most minerals. The value of discovered reserves is high relative to the costs of exploration, particularly when low social discount rates are used to value potential production in the future. Discovery is therefore valuable and should be considered as adding to national wealth through increases in proven reserves. Many countries can continue to generate resource rents far longer than indicated by current reserve estimates and this has implications for decisions on how to plan to spend or save rents. With the high response of discovery to prices and technology, environmental constraints (climate change, water) are more likely than the actual exhaustion of resource deposits to limit resource-based development. The divergence between private and social valuation of discoveries may also justify measures taken by countries to encourage exploration, including through the provision of geo-scientific data to increase interest in discovery as well as competition among mining companies. More information is needed on the payoff to such investments, some of which are supported by donors. However, exploration is, of course, only a slice of the resource value chain. Many countries will need to improve management along the entire chain if resource wealth is to benefit their development. [CGD Working Paper]. URL:[http://www.cgdev.org/files/1426040_file_Gelb_Kaiser_Vinuela_extraction_FINAL.pdf].
Este informe presenta una seleccion de estudios sobre transparencia y corrupcion que abarcan desd... more Este informe presenta una seleccion de estudios sobre transparencia y corrupcion que abarcan desde la relacion de la corrupcion con los fenomenos socioeconomicos hasta los vinculos entre implementacion de politicas y cambios. El punto de partida es el analisis empirico de la corrupcion que, en la actualidad, ha logrado una posicion firme en un gran numero de disciplinas de investigacion. El acceso a esta informacion resulta imprescindible para comprender mejor el campo de la corrupcion y permite a los responsables de formular politicas interpretar e incorporar resultados en sus iniciativas anticorrupcion.
Page 1. RETRODICTING THE UNCOVERED SET William T. Bianco Department of Political Science Penn Sta... more Page 1. RETRODICTING THE UNCOVERED SET William T. Bianco Department of Political Science Penn State University Michael S. Lynch Gary J. Miller Itai Sened Department of Political Science Washington University in St. Louis ...
This paper presents a methodology to evaluate fiscal decentralization focused on the potential mi... more This paper presents a methodology to evaluate fiscal decentralization focused on the potential mis-targeting of intergovernmental fiscal equalization transfers. The approach builds on an explicit comparison and the summary measurement of different ("horizontal") allocation distributions across states or localities. Whereas formula based fiscal transfers have the merit of being transparent and promoting revenue predictability in fiscal decentralization, in practice, two challenges emerge: (a) What are the appropriate formula designs given the sub-national data constraints evident in most decentralizing developing countries?, and (b) How costly in terms of mis-targeting to the presumed expenditure needs and fiscal capacity are deviations from these types of benchmark formulas (e.g., due to historical factors or the need to meet establishment costs such as civil service wages)? We illustrate this approach through an assessment of Indonesia's evolving intergovernmental fiscal system, instituted in the 2001 Big Bang decentralization. The discussion comes against Indonesia's recent policy decision to fully fund sub-national civil servant wages as part of the base general allocation grant (DAU) transfers, raising questions about both incentive effects for local governments and potential mis-targeting. We identify potential efficiency losses from the DAU's horizontal misallocation from half a dozen alternative scenarios found in the policy dialogue, ranging from 9 to 30 percent -on the order of USD 3.9 billion -of the overall annual size of this large intergovernmental transfer. The scale of these trade-offs highlights the importance of intergovernmental transfers in more general debates in public finance for decentralized countries.
World Bank policy research working paper, Jan 6, 2005
How effective are public interventions in addressing significant regional disparities in formal m... more How effective are public interventions in addressing significant regional disparities in formal manufacturing concentration in a developing economy? We examine the aggregate and sectoral geographic concentration of manufacturing industries for Indonesia, and estimate the impact of factors influencing location choice at the firm level. We distinguish between natural advantage, including infrastructure endowments, wage rates, and natural resource endowments, and production externalities, arising from the co-location of firms in the same or complementary industries. The methodology pays special attention to empirically distinguishing the impact of measured production externalities from unobserved local characteristics. Depending on the sector, we find that a mix of both forms of regional advantage explains the geographic distribution of firms. Based on the estimated location choice model, we illustrate the potential impacts of policy interventions on manufacturing distribution by simulating the effectiveness of transport improvements on relocation of firms. Our findings suggest that improvements in transport infrastructure may only have limited effects in attracting industry to secondary industrial centers outside of Java, especially in sectors already established in leading regions. The findings underscore the challenges for addressing the industrial fortunes of lagging regions, either through local decentralized policy interventions or national policies focused on infrastructure development. * This paper is part of a larger effort to understand the impact of spatial policy interventions on the regional distribution and performance of economic activities, particularly in lagging sub national regions. The research has been funded by a World Bank research program grant on "Urbanization and Quality of Life". We would like to thank the Indonesian Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) for facilitating access to establishment level data, Alejandro Badel for excellent research assistance, and Ani Dasgupta and Neil McCulloch for useful discussions on regional development issues in Indonesia.
World Bank policy research working paper, Jan 7, 2011
This paper was commissioned as a background paper to the World Bank's MENA Social Development Reg... more This paper was commissioned as a background paper to the World Bank's MENA Social Development Regional Study Reducing Conflict Risk and Supporting Peaceful Transition. Special thanks goes to Jorge Araujo and Alan Gelb for comments on previous versions of this paper, and participants comments for an initial version presented at a MENA Region presentation and Economist Forum at World Bank in Washington, DC March and April 2011. Particular thanks goes to Lorena Viñuela for her significant role in helping shape the paper and comparative insights from Latin Americas democratic transition. All views and opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors. All remaining errors are our own.
Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, Apr 1, 2005
... Long-standing tensions between island identities, centred on the town of Tanjung-pinang and t... more ... Long-standing tensions between island identities, centred on the town of Tanjung-pinang and the mainland provincial capital, Pekanbaru, have fuelled claims for separation (Ford 2003). A sense among the islanders of administrative neglect by ...
The widespread presence of local conflict characterizes many developing countries such as Indones... more The widespread presence of local conflict characterizes many developing countries such as Indonesia. Outbreaks of violent conflict not only have direct costs for lives, livelihoods, and material property, but may also have the potential to escalate further. Recent studies on large-scale "headline" conflicts have tended to exclude the systematic consideration of local conflict, in large part due to the absence of representative data at low levels of geographic specification. This paper is a first attempt to correct for that. We evaluate a unique dataset compiled by the Indonesian government, the periodic Village Potential Statistics (PODES), which seeks to map conflict across all of Indonesia's 69,000 villages/neighborhoods. The data confirm that conflict is prevalent beyond well publicized "conflict regions," and that it can be observed across the archipelago. The data report largely violent conflict in 7.1 percent of Indonesia's lowest administrative tier (rural desa and urban kelurahan). Integrating examples from qualitative fieldwork, we assess issues in the measurement of local conflict for quantitative analysis, and adopt an empirical framework to examine potential associations with poverty, inequality, shocks, ethnic and religious diversity/inequality, and community-level associational and security arrangements. The quantitative analysis shows positive correlations between local conflict and unemployment, inequality, natural disasters, changes in sources of incomes, and clustering of ethnic groups within villages. The institutional variables indicate that the presence of places of worship is associated with less conflict, while the presence of religious groups and traditional culture (adat) institutions are associated with conflict. We conclude by suggesting future areas of research, notably on the role of group inequality and inference, and suggest ways to improve the measurement of conflict in the village census. The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the view of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent. Policy Research Working Papers are available online at .
for the many helpful discussions on the topic of the paper. We thank Fitria Fitriani for excellen... more for the many helpful discussions on the topic of the paper. We thank Fitria Fitriani for excellent research assistance.
The paper considers the process of discovery for subsoil resources, including both hard minerals ... more The paper considers the process of discovery for subsoil resources, including both hard minerals and hydrocarbons and estimates its magnitude in recent years, as derived from the sum of extraction and changes in proven reserves. Spurred on by technology change and strong market conditions, discovery has been substantial for most minerals. The value of discovered reserves is high relative to the costs of exploration, particularly when low social discount rates are used to value potential production in the future. Discovery is therefore valuable and should be considered as adding to national wealth through increases in proven reserves. Many countries can continue to generate resource rents far longer than indicated by current reserve estimates and this has implications for decisions on how to plan to spend or save rents. With the high response of discovery to prices and technology, environmental constraints (climate change, water) are more likely than the actual exhaustion of resource deposits to limit resource-based development. The divergence between private and social valuation of discoveries may also justify measures taken by countries to encourage exploration, including through the provision of geo-scientific data to increase interest in discovery as well as competition among mining companies. More information is needed on the payoff to such investments, some of which are supported by donors. However, exploration is, of course, only a slice of the resource value chain. Many countries will need to improve management along the entire chain if resource wealth is to benefit their development. [CGD Working Paper]. URL:[http://www.cgdev.org/files/1426040_file_Gelb_Kaiser_Vinuela_extraction_FINAL.pdf].
Este informe presenta una seleccion de estudios sobre transparencia y corrupcion que abarcan desd... more Este informe presenta una seleccion de estudios sobre transparencia y corrupcion que abarcan desde la relacion de la corrupcion con los fenomenos socioeconomicos hasta los vinculos entre implementacion de politicas y cambios. El punto de partida es el analisis empirico de la corrupcion que, en la actualidad, ha logrado una posicion firme en un gran numero de disciplinas de investigacion. El acceso a esta informacion resulta imprescindible para comprender mejor el campo de la corrupcion y permite a los responsables de formular politicas interpretar e incorporar resultados en sus iniciativas anticorrupcion.
Uploads
Papers by Kai Kaiser