2014
DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2014.01.008
|View full text |Cite
|
Sign up to set email alerts
|

Administrative Overspending in Indonesian Districts: The Role of Local Politics

Abstract: We analyze the determinants of the excessive administrative spending of local governments in Indonesia. In an unbalanced panel data set of 399 districts for 2001-2009, we show that the proliferation of districts has not led to increased administrative spending; instead a lack of political accountability is responsible for this excess. The degree of political competition influences the level of administrative spending significantly; newly introduced direct elections of district heads, however, did not curtail t… Show more

Help me understand this report

Search citation statements

Order By: Relevance

Paper Sections

Select...
1
1
1
1

Citation Types

0
36
0
3

Year Published

2014
2014
2024
2024

Publication Types

Select...
8
1
1

Relationship

1
9

Authors

Journals

citations
Cited by 48 publications
(39 citation statements)
references
References 36 publications
0
36
0
3
Order By: Relevance
“…However, in 1999, as East Timor voted to secede and civil war intensified in Aceh, the government rushed through a ‘big bang’ decentralisation reform, allocating, mainly on an unconditional basis, about one‐third of the national government's budget to the kabupaten , which were then also able to elect their own governments. Because the decentralisation was so hasty, and implemented by a national government grappling with the biggest economic and political crisis in the country's history, the reform could be judged either a success, as it achieved the aim of maintaining the nation‐state (Mietzner, ), or one that had limited tangible effects other than enriching local elites (Sjahrir et al ., ). Certainly there is little evidence to date of improved local service quality (Lewis, ).…”
Section: Subnational Development Dynamicsmentioning
confidence: 97%
“…However, in 1999, as East Timor voted to secede and civil war intensified in Aceh, the government rushed through a ‘big bang’ decentralisation reform, allocating, mainly on an unconditional basis, about one‐third of the national government's budget to the kabupaten , which were then also able to elect their own governments. Because the decentralisation was so hasty, and implemented by a national government grappling with the biggest economic and political crisis in the country's history, the reform could be judged either a success, as it achieved the aim of maintaining the nation‐state (Mietzner, ), or one that had limited tangible effects other than enriching local elites (Sjahrir et al ., ). Certainly there is little evidence to date of improved local service quality (Lewis, ).…”
Section: Subnational Development Dynamicsmentioning
confidence: 97%
“…Due to massive decentralization during its democratic transition, individual districts exercise extensive control over both policy implementation and budgets (Sjahrir, Kis-Kasot, & Shulze, 2014). 2 Variation between districts grants the opportunity to seek out successful cases and compare them with relatively less successful cases while holding a variety of variables constant.…”
Section: Politics Bureaucrats and Participatory Policy Implementationmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The challenge is to identify which part of the administrative spending can be considered overspending. Sjahrir et al (2014) analyze the budgets of Indonesian local governments since the administrative decentralization of 2001 and show that on average, districts spend about 30% of their budget on administrative purposes, which in some districts can go as high as 60%. In a panel approach, they find that high administrative expenditures are not a result of the proliferation of new districts, but can be related to the lack of political accountability: they are higher when local population is less educated, and increase with the concentration of political power in local parliaments (DPRD).…”
Section: Administrative Overspendingmentioning
confidence: 99%